


Stumped! An Evening Out with Fall Out Boy

by earlgreytea68



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M, Valentine's Day, be my peterick valentines 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 00:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17776823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: Patrick says, “I want you to think about what you’re saying. You think we should write a musical.”





	Stumped! An Evening Out with Fall Out Boy

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Be My Peterick Valentine's 2019! It was supposed to be...slightly more Valentine-y, but it's pretty romantic and adorable and does eventually get around to Valentine's Day, so!
> 
> Thank you to Aja for the initial idea and knowing actual things about musicals and also the story about "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" that Pete tells Patrick. Thank you also to leyley09 who very nicely read this over when I was freaking out about it. And thank you to the organizers of the challenge!

Pete has never met an opportunity he didn’t want to at the very least make out with for a bit before making up his mind whether he wanted to take it home and fuck it.

Not that Pete had met many opportunities he didn’t want to take home and fuck.

Patrick tells Pete that on the day that Pete comes over, his eyes fever-bright, literally bouncing around Patrick’s living room, high on this latest opportunity.

“What the fuck,” Pete says to him. “You can’t fuck opportunities. They don’t have the right, like, equipment for fucking. They’re abstract.”

“It’s a metaphor,” Patrick says. “You know. Metaphors are your whole  _ thing _ .”

“Well, it’s a weird metaphor and it makes me sound like I fuck people indiscriminately, which I resent. I am discerning.”

“Since when?” asks Patrick. “Anyway, I’m saying you fuck  _ opportunities _ indiscriminately, and that’s an entirely different thing. Mostly. I mean, sometimes I feel like you’ve figured out a way to fuck people and opportunities at the same time, but—”

Pete snaps his fingers in front of Patrick’s face. “Yo. Sugar Lips. You’re missing the point.”

Yes, there’s a possibility he’s carried this metaphor too far and spent too much time thinking about Pete’s fucking habits. Patrick says, “Sorry. Tell me the point.”

“The point is that if opportunities were things one could fuck, this is one I’d tie up in elaborate bondage and use sex toys on. With proper consent.”

Patrick stares at him and then says flatly, “I am so sorry I used this metaphor, I want you to go outside and come back in and we’ll restart this conversation.”

“Okay!” exclaims Pete happily, always game for absurdity, and bounces his way out of Patrick’s house like a version of Tigger in an eye-hurting jacket.

Then the doorbell rings.

Patrick calls out from the couch, “You have a key, remember?”

The doorbell rings again.

Patrick curses the day he met Pete Wentz, because it led to this moment, right here, Patrick having to  _ get up _ to let him in through what turns out to be his  _ unlocked front door _ . “You didn’t ring the bell before,” Patrick grumbles. “You just let yourself in.”

“This is a reset,” Pete says. “I’m making different choices. Hi, Trick!” He gives Patrick an enthusiastic hug, which he did not give him the first time they played this little scene through.

Patrick is caught as off-guard as he can ever be by one of Pete’s hugs, since at any given moment Pete is eighty percent likely to decide Patrick needs a hug. He hugs Patrick back and swings the door closed and says obligingly, “Hi, Pete. How are you? It’s good to see you.”

Pete beams at him and says, “This is good. Good acting. Do you want something to drink?”

“This is my house,” Patrick says uselessly as Pete heads toward the fridge.

He returns with two beers and hands Patrick one negligently and says, “I think we should do it.”

Apparently they’re done pretending the previous conversation never happened. Pete pulls himself up onto Patrick’s kitchen counter and swings his feet like a little kid and looks at Patrick expectantly as he sips his beer.

“Of course you do. This is what I mean about you. You think we should do  _ everything _ .”

“Yes,” Pete says. “Obviously. I always have. Why shouldn’t we?”

Pete has always lived his life like he was trying to outrun the finish line, like the finish line was breathing down his neck at every moment and the only way to ignore that feeling of being stalked by the end was to crowd yourself with as many different things to do as possible. Patrick is happy that the Pete who was worried he’d never get the chance to live as much as he wanted to is now the Pete who had been cramming so much in for so long that it could have filled several lifetimes, he is of course very grateful for that, but sometimes it can be exhausting to keep up with Pete’s pace. Luckily, whenever he flags, Pete grabs his hand and drags him for a little while, cheerful and uncomplaining, until Patrick can get his feet under him.

Patrick suspects this is one of those moments.

He says, “I want you to think about what you’re saying. You think we should write a  _ musical _ .”

“Yeah,” Pete says. “I mean,  _ yes _ . Dude, we’d write a fucking awesome musical.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because we write good music.”

“A musical is totally different. Like.  _ Totally _ different.”

“Patrick, there is literally no type of music you couldn’t write,” Pete says confidently. In the course of basically half of their lives, Pete’s unerring faith in Patrick’s omnipotence has never once wavered, not since the moment they first met and Pete said,  _ Oh, totally, you’ll be the best lead singer of all time _ .

“We don’t even have a plot,” Patrick points out reasonably.

Pete gives him a look. “That’s my job. I’ll come up with the words. As usual. And you’ll just set them to music. Trick, we’ve done this a thousand times before, there’s nothing different about it now.”

“It’s a musical. I think it’s going to be different,” says Patrick.

***

Joe and Andy are both like,  _ Yeah, whatever, it’s fine, whatever you want to do _ , to Pete, because they’re always very happy when Pete has ideas that are mostly going to involve  _ Patrick _ having to rein him in.

And so Patrick goes with Pete to New York to meet with theatre producers who for some reason have lost their fucking minds and think that Fall Out Boy should write a fucking musical.

Pete has always loved New York and he’s enthusiastic about being back. On the day they land, even though they’re jetlagged and Patrick kind of wants to nap it off, Pete knocks on his hotel room door and waves two tickets under his nose and says, “Let’s go.”

“Go?” Patrick says blankly. “Where?”

“I got us tickets to a show, so we can go see how much better we’re going to be at this whole Broadway musical business.”

“Pete, we literally just landed, I was going to take a nap—Fine,” he relents, when Pete gives him his stupid puppy-dog eyes. Patrick smashes a hat onto his head and says, “I hate you,” to Pete.

Pete beams and takes his hand and swings their joined hands back and forth between them as they walk down the hotel hallway.

Patrick yawns and says, “What’s the show we’re going to?”

Pete says, “ _ Frozen _ .”

Patrick stops walking and says, “You got us tickets to  _ Frozen _ ? You think that’s going to be our musical’s competition?”

“It’s going to get us in the proper mindset,” Pete promises.

***

The show is good. Better than Patrick expected, really. And nothing at all like anything he and Pete would ever write.

Pete insists they go for a drink afterward, and Patrick was fucking exhausted three hours ago, he’s way past exhausted now, but he goes because Pete is such a sparkling version of excited and Patrick kind of loves this version of him, finds him irresistible in this state, finds himself saying,  _ Yeah, sure, we’ll write a musical together _ .

“I mean,” says Pete, gesturing between them, “you and I, we could  _ totally _ do that.”

Patrick, his elbow propped on the table and his chin on his fist, watches Pete fondly and says, “We could write  _ Frozen _ ?”

“Totally,” Pete says, nodding like a bobblehead.

“Your version of ‘Let It Go,’” Patrick says, “would have had so much cursing in it. Like, not swear words. Literal cursing. You would have had Elsa encasing people in frozen prisons for all eternity while they dwell on the burning icy core of your wronged princess.”

Pete laughs in delight.

“And then,” Patrick says, “probably you’d have had Elsa cover the entire kingdom in an avalanche, while singing angrily about the fickleness of lovers.”

Pete is laughing loudly enough now that they’re attracting attention. “Only Olaf would be able to survive the avalanche,” he suggests.

“Olaf, and zombies,” Patrick concludes, and they laugh hard enough that Patrick is wiping tears out of his eyes when they finally catch their breath. Patrick says, still fuzzy around the edges with the laughter, “We would never write  _ Frozen _ , you and I.”

“I don’t want to write  _ Frozen _ ,” Pete says. “But I didn’t want us to go tonight to any of the musicals written by rock stars and think that that’s what we have to do. It isn’t. We shouldn’t. We should just write what we want to write. If we want to write  _ Frozen _ , we should fucking write  _ Frozen _ .”

“Do you want to write  _ Frozen _ ?” Patrick asks, curious, because a fairy tale about love conquering all doesn’t seem like a Pete Wentz thing except for the fact that it totally seems like a Pete Wentz thing. He’s not sure which version of Pete he’s got in front of him today.

“No. I don’t know.” Pete lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “I haven’t thought about what I want to write yet.” Pete looks at him across the table. “Maybe I’ll write about you.”

“Me?” says Patrick, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry every song’s about you,” Pete says, an old joke between them.

Patrick shakes his head. “I would be the most boring Broadway musical of all time.”

“I’d call it Stumped,” Pete says.

“Oh, my God,” says Patrick. “You are definitely not calling our musical Stumped.”

“Oh, I’m always calling it Stumped in my head now. From this moment on. Our Musical: Working Title Stumped.”

“Jesus,” complains Patrick. “Why are you such a ridiculous human being?”

“You’re so lucky to have been blessed with me,” says Pete, smiling wide enough to flip from irritating to endearing. Or maybe it’s just that Patrick’s understanding of  _ irritating _ and  _ endearing _ is all fucked up from too many years of Pete Wentz.

He says, “Are you going to sleep tonight?”

Pete shrugs, which means  _ probably not _ and also  _ that depends on you _ because, again, in those too many years of Pete Wentz, Patrick has grown used to the fact that Pete is bad at sleeping generally but is decent at sleeping if Patrick relents and lets him cuddle, and in early years Patrick used to worry that a night of cuddling Pete would lead to an embarrassing morning but now Patrick is an expert at juggling the combination of warm sleepy Pete and morning erections in a way that keeps their weird unspoken line between them unscuffed and intact.

Patrick says, “Come on,” as an invitation, and if Pete were a dog, his tail would have wagged happily, Patrick thinks.

***

Pete starts off the day in a good mood.

That’s not how he ends it.

At first it seems like it’s going to go well. It’s one of those meetings when they’re being courted and buttered up, and Patrick doesn’t much care about that stuff but Pete really likes forcing people to play that game with them, likes making people say stupid things like  _ Oh, yes, Patrick is probably one of the best composers of the past twenty years _ . It’s totally a game for Pete, how much he can make people say to see how red he can make Patrick get, and eventually Patrick has to interrupt just to say, “Okay, this is all great and everything, but I’ve never written a musical before.”

The producers are all marvelously unconcerned. “Not a big deal at all,” one of them assures him.

“Totally,” another chirps happily.

“You know how to write  _ music _ ,” another says, leaning across the table at him with hands clasped in tremendous solemnity. “Music that touches the  _ soul _ .”

Pete looks like he’s going to fall right off his chair in glee over this statement.

Patrick says, “I don’t think that ‘Uma Thurman’ really touched anyone’s soul.”

“You’re a name people recognize,” says another producer, and Patrick isn’t sure any of these people have ever even heard a single Fall Out Boy song. He kind of wants to give them a quiz, take them to a karaoke bar and see if any of them can sing even one line of any of the Fall Out Boy songs in the catalogue.

“We can totally work with it,” says the first. “A Night Out with Fall Out Boy.”

“Evening Out,” Pete corrects.

The producers look at him blankly.

“Oh,” says Pete innocently, “I thought you were playing off the LP title. An Evening Out with Fall Out Boy.”

They have no idea what the LP was called, Patrick thinks. And Pete is well aware, looking satisfied as they all scribble notes down.

And then one of the producers says, “So, what we’ll do is we’ll hook you up with this great librettist we’ve got, Lisette, you’ll love her—”

“What’s the librettist going to do?” Pete asks.

“Write the book for the musical.”

“Hang on,” Pete says. “I thought you wanted a Fall Out Boy musical. Why is someone else writing the book for our musical?”

“Oh, she’s just going to  _ help _ you,” the producer says soothingly. “She’ll just, like,  _ inspire _ you. She’s just there to be a  _ story consultant _ .”

“You’ll love her,” chimes in the next producer.

Patrick has a sneaking suspicion Pete is not going to like Lisette.

***

Pete is silently sulky when they get out of the meeting. Patrick knows exactly the source of this sulk but sometimes you just have to let Pete sulk it out, until he gets to his own point (it can sometimes take Pete a while to find his own point). Patrick tries to cheer him up by suggesting they catch another musical, but Pete is now “over New York.”

“I just want to go home,” he whines, and Patrick wisely doesn’t point out that they’re going to have to spend a bunch of time in New York because now they’re writing a musical. With a librettist named Lisette.

Pete rouses himself from his sulk on the plane. Well, he rouses himself enough to articulate about his sulk. “She’s got a stupid name.”

Patrick is reading a magazine he randomly grabbed while they were waiting to board. The lead story is on Duchess Meghan. He’s learned a lot about her purse-buying habits. He says, “She probably can’t help her name.”

“She can help her career, though.  _ Lisette _ who  _ librettes _ . Like, I think a smart rule of thumb is to avoid rhyming your name with your career.”

“I don’t think ‘librette’ is a verb. She’s a librettist. Lisette the librettist.”

“I’m not working with her,” Pete says.

“I think we agreed to work with her,” Patrick points out.

“It’s insulting,” Pete continues, not listening to Patrick at all. “They think I can’t write my own musical. Can you imagine that? Thinking that I can’t write a musical?” His voice is rising in outrage.

“You’ve never written a musical before,” says Patrick.

“I can write a fucking musical in my fucking  _ sleep _ ,” Pete spits out.

The woman sitting opposite them with the toddler settled next to her gives them a dirty look. Pete catches Patrick’s attempt at a silent apology in her direction, turns to face her, and insists, “Well, I  _ can _ .”

“Okay,” Patrick says, and tugs at Pete’s sleeve to get his attention back. “Look, you might really like Lisette.”

“I’m not going to like Lisette,” sulks Pete sulkily.

“Not with that attitude, you’re not,” says Patrick heartily.

“Oh, dear Lord,” says Pete, “please save me from whatever this Patrick Stump pep talk is going to be.”

“I don’t give you pep talks,” Patrick says, frowning, a little offended by that characterization. Sure, he spends a lot of time cheering Pete up, but he doesn’t do it with  _ pep talks _ .

“No, I don’t let you,” says Pete. “Or you’re smart enough not to. Or something.” Pete settles his head onto Patrick’s shoulder and somehow manages to make even that motion full of sulk.

“We don’t have to do the musical,” Patrick says.

“I don’t want to give you other people’s words,” Pete huffs into his neck. “I don’t want you setting other people’s words to music.  _ I  _ get your music.”

That’s a little possessive, but nothing Patrick didn’t already know. And Patrick might not behave that way much of the time, but he’s secretly just as possessive as Pete and would go crazy with jealousy if Pete started sending lyrics to other people. So Patrick says, “I don’t want other people’s words. Don’t worry about it. The librettist writes the book. You’ll still write the lyrics.”

Pete is silent for a long moment, then says definitively, “I don’t like Lisette.”

***

Patrick is in the recording studio supervising a score he just got done with composing when he gets the text from Pete. Well, he gets six separate texts from Pete, one word each.

_ What _

_ The _

_ Actual _

_ Fuck _

_ Is _

_ This _

Patrick lifts his eyebrows and texts back,  _ I’m in the middle of something, can this meltdown wait? _

Pete texts back,  _ Fucking Lisette _ , and Patrick puts his phone away because that was pretty predictable, frankly.

When he’s done recording, he calls Pete up.

Pete answers with, “Don’t worry, I handled it.”

Sometimes when Pete says those words, Patrick feels the weightlessness of relief, because Pete can be really, really good at handling things, but Patrick does not think Pete is good at handling Lisette, because Pete two days ago sent him an entire disjointed quasi-LiveJournal-entry’s worth of lyrics about a woman named Lisette who can’t write and insisted it was “just  _ fiction _ , Trick!”

Patrick says, “What did you do?”

“She asked for notes,” says Pete. “I sent back notes.”

_ Fuck _ , thinks Patrick. He can just imagine what Pete’s notes are.

He sits in his car and turns it on to let the air conditioning run while he navigates to his email. There’s a story treatment from Lisette, with a professional cover email asking for their notes, just as Pete said. It says,  _ I wanted to go for something a little unexpected from the two of you. I didn’t want gloom and doom! _

It doesn’t fill Patrick with confidence. 

He opens the treatment and thumbs through it. It’s nothing amazing or remarkable, a pretty straightforward story about a guy in a band whose band ends up, through a series of implausible events, saving a little girl’s pet pig from certain death, getting that pig to win some state fair, and oh, yeah, in the process the guy falls in love with the little girl’s mom. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it sounds like it could be a musical, and, anyway, it’s not really Patrick’s job to write the story.

It is, however, Pete’s job to figure out where to put songs in this, and Patrick isn’t sure there’s anything in here that would call for the kind of lyrics that Pete writes. He’s annoyed on Pete’s behalf that this is the plot they’ve been given.

Pete’s notes are,  _ We need to add in a pizza delivery guy showing up with a “meat lover’s special.” If you know what I mean. I can provide you with some links if you need further explanation. _

Patrick can’t help that he snorts laughter, and then he calls Pete.

“It’s terrible,” Pete says instead of  _ hello _ . “It’s terrible. They think I couldn’t come up with something better than  _ that _ ? It’s fucking  _ Charlotte’s Web _ , but, like, all the worst parts of  _ Charlotte’s Web _ . I’d rather just do straight-up  _ Charlotte’s Web _ , for fuck’s sake.”

Patrick has to wait until he stops laughing to reply. “I know. I’m sorry. A pizza delivery guy with a meat lover’s special?”

“Dude, I’d much rather put straight-up porn on the stage than whatever that was.”

“Get your lyrics about state fairs ready,” Patrick says.

“Fuck you,” replies Pete.

***

Lisette, to her credit, writes them back.  _ Yeah, sorry, it’s terrible, that was the producers’ idea. What about something more like this? _

The story she sends them now is about a boy who’s in a band and his girlfriend dumps him so he decides he will have the best band in the universe just so he can rub her face in it but then once his band is super-successful he realizes it means nothing without her.

Patrick puts more beer in his fridge and waits for Pete to let himself into the house.

Pete staggers in and collapses onto the couch. “How the fuck is it worse than the thing with the pig?”

Patrick brings the first beer over to Pete.

Pete cracks an eye open at him. “Is this what people think my lyrics are all about? Getting revenge?”

“Um,” says Patrick.

Pete sits up to take his beer and chug it.

Then he takes out his phone.

“What are you going to write her?” Patrick asks.

“That I don’t think the story should be about a boy in a band, it should be about a naughty schoolboy who is going to blackmail his teacher into a better grade.”

“Hard to argue with the classics,” says Patrick.

***

Patrick’s phone rings in the middle of the night. He’s not sleeping, because he got caught up in a terrible B-movie marathon on some random cable channel he didn’t even know he had.

“Hey,” he says to Pete on the other end.

“What are you doing?” Pete asks, clearly wanting to be distracted.

“Watching some movie called  _ Robot Monster _ . It’s amazing.”

“Ugh,” says Pete, “I’m jealous. Do you own that movie?”

“No, I don’t know, it’s on cable somewhere. Come over if you want.”

“You know the thing that’s most wrong about The Musical We’ll Probably Call Stumped?”

“That’s not its name,” says Patrick.

“Like, when your band is the best in the universe, or whatever. When you’ve spent all that time and effort making the music that good to… I don’t know, you don’t wake up at the end of that and wish for a girl from years ago. Your life is about the band at that point. It’s…the band. The band’s the love of your life.”

Patrick pauses  _ Robot Monster _ , because Pete is being too serious for that. He says, after a moment, “Yeah. You’re right.”

“If it’s a love story about anything, it’s a love story about a band,” says Pete.

“So pitch that,” says Patrick.

“They don’t want my ideas. They want Lisette to librette.”

“That’s because they haven’t heard your ideas. If you know what you want to write about, then we should just start writing it. Fuck them.”

Pete huffs out a breath. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll poke at some lyrics, I guess.”

“Yeah,” says Patrick, and tries to gauge Pete’s mood. “Do you want to come over for  _ Robot Monster _ ? I’ll rewatch it with you. I can make popcorn.”

“No,” says Pete. “I’m fine. I think I’ll write.”

In the morning Patrick wakes to a rush of lyrics, Pete’s particular brand of melancholy longing and fiercely passionate adulation. There’s a story in there. Patrick can hear it. There’s a voice woven through the lyrics. And it isn’t just Pete’s voice. It’s a duet. Patrick spends the day pulling lines this way and that, and at the end there’s a rough song, for a musical with a story that doesn’t even exist.

Patrick uploads it and sends a link to Pete with an email that reads,  _ Whoever these two characters are, they’re star-crossed as fuck _ .

Pete writes back with,  _ Tell me about it. _

When Patrick goes back into their shared drive, Pete’s named the song.  _ You Wouldn’t Recognize a Good Thing _ .

***

Pete is sending him lyrics at a clip that tells Patrick he’s not taking care of himself. The lyrics are good, and there is clearly something taking shape in Pete’s brain, and Patrick’s trying to pick it out, trying to make patterns out of it, while also being patient and not rushing Pete’s process. Not that he really knows Pete’s process for writing a musical but he feels like he knows Pete well enough to know that he shouldn’t be rushed. Pete’s chaos always resolves itself into something useable in the end.

So, he knows not to rush Pete, and also that Pete probably isn’t eating.  

So Patrick buys supplies and lets himself into Pete’s house. The downstairs is utterly silent and deserted so he wanders upstairs, where Taylor Swift music is blasting from Pete’s bedroom. The bedroom itself is covered in a combination of books and scribbled-over pieces of paper. Patrick glances at some of the nearest books, and they run a gamut of Greek mythology, collections of fairy tales, and  _ How Musicals Work: And How to Write Your Own _ .

Patrick understand this. The tendency for insatiable curiosity toward a new interest, wanting to devour all knowledge about it and absorb it into one’s skin, is a tendency Patrick and Pete actually share, and it’s great when their areas of interest happen to overlap. The main difference between them is that Pete ordinarily finds a way to turn his interests into money-making opportunities. Pete is a natural entrepreneur, he can find the path to profit through anything he loves. Patrick’s passionate interests usually send Patrick running to Pete to see if maybe he could fund them with his copious amounts of savvy investments.

Pete is sitting cross-legged on his bed with a laptop in front of him and a pen caught between his teeth, surrounded by more books and papers.

Patrick says, “Hey.”

Pete blinks up at him for a second, then goes back to his computer. “Hey.”

Patrick picks his way through the bedroom and leans over Pete on the bed, peering over his shoulder. With anyone but Pete, he would feel rude and self-conscious doing this, but Pete has so little concept of personal space that Patrick’s grown used to invading it. Pete reads over Patrick’s shoulder all the time, so Patrick reads over Pete’s. Pete is never going to get offended.

But Patrick is distracted from trying to read Pete’s screen by the fact that Pete suddenly snuggles his head into the curve of Patrick’s neck and says, his voice so very obviously suffused with happiness, “Hey, you.”

They’ve already done the greeting, but Patrick can’t bring himself to point that out, because it really never gets old that Pete is so endlessly pleased to see him. They see each other more than two people who aren’t having sex should ever see each other, Patrick thinks, and still Pete is unfailingly delighted whenever Patrick enters his field of vision. Pete takes every opportunity to snuggle Patrick, and Patrick should be totally used to it, he should just shrug it off and ask about the musical, but instead he’s caught in the absurd glow of for whatever unknown reason being the person Pete wants to snuggle and light up over.

He lets himself rest his head for a second against Pete’s, pressing back against him, and says, “Hey. When’s the last time you ate?”

“Ate?” echoes Pete blankly.

“Yeah, I thought so.” Patrick brushes his mouth over Pete’s head, and it could have been a kiss if you squinted, or it could just be how they interact. “I brought Chinese.”

“ _ Food _ ?” says Pete.

“That’s usually what people eat, yeah,” confirms Patrick, as Pete bounces his way off the bed.

“Aww, Trick, does that mean that we cannot survive on poetry alone?” asks Pete, grinning from ear to ear as he shuts the music off.

“No,” Patrick says, following Pete out of the bedroom and nudging a few books with his feet as he passes them. “But you’re giving it a damn good try.”

Pete laughs and laughs like Patrick is hilarious, and Patrick rolls his eyes and indulges him as he gets them plates and silverware and Pete sits on the kitchen counter in his own kitchen and makes Patrick do everything because he’s too busy telling Patrick about  _ A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum _ . “They didn’t have the right opening song,” he says. “It’s really important we have the right opening song.”

“Right, like, good?” Patrick asks.

“No, right, like, for the  _ show _ . Which song are you thinking for the opening?”

“I don’t even know what our show is,” says Patrick. “And none of the songs are done. I don’t even know where they fit in the story. They’re all over the place.”

“They’re  _ perfect _ ,” Pete says. “They’re all perfect.”

“That one that’s, like, angry, is really rough. Come eat,” he says.

“Plates and everything,” Pete says. “This is so fancy. Do you want me to find some candles? I’ll light us some candles.”

“We don’t need candles,” says Patrick.

“No, no.” Pete is in a flurry of motion around the open floorplan. “You went to all the trouble to get us silverware.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why, they gave us chopsticks, would you sit down?”

“Yeah, no, hang on,” says Pete, and then comes back with an arm full of candles, jars and votives of various scents that he starts arranging roughly in the middle of the table.

“What the fuck,” says Patrick. “Why do you have so many candles?”

“I’m a romantic soul,” says Pete. “I like the gentle glow of candlelight.”

“I’ve never seen you light a candle before this,” Patrick points out. “Does that mean you’re lighting candles when I’m not around? How have you not managed to burn the house down?”

“I can light candles unsupervised, Patrick,” says Pete.

“Hmm,” says Patrick, dubious, and yet the evidence seems to be in front of him, as Pete is lighting all of the candles now out on the table.

“What angry song?” asks Pete, as he finally sits down.

“Huh?” says Patrick.

“You said the angry song is rough.” Pete talks around an enormous mouthful of lo mein.

“Yeah. The one you titled ‘Ode to a Grecian Burn.’”

Pete frowns. “I’m not sold on that title. It’s not really supposed to be angry, it’s supposed to be passionate.”

“Maybe if you told me what the story is,” Patrick hints, because now that he has Pete in front of him, it’s clear that Pete is pretty far along in developing this musical, he just hasn’t clued Patrick in yet.

Pete says, “You see, there’s this disobedient twink army private who needs to be disciplined by his buff commanding officer…”

Patrick is startled into laughter and throws a fortune cookie across the table at Pete, who catches it, also laughing. “Asshole, why can’t you just tell me what it’s about? I need to know for the songs.”

“You’re doing okay so far. And I’m not ready. Anyway, who says I’m not writing porn? I could be totally writing porn.”

“Might as well put all those hours of research to good use,” says Patrick.

The doorbell rings.

They both look up at it, frowning.

“Who the fuck,” says Pete, obviously annoyed, as he gets up to answer it.

He opens it on a dark-haired woman who says confidently, “Pete Wentz. Hi.”

“Hi?” Pete says, slow and uncertain, because you never can be too careful about overzealous stalkers.

Patrick curses him for opening the door without looking first and tries to surreptitiously reach for his phone, which brings the woman’s attention over to him.

“Oh,” she says. “Sorry to interrupt your date.”

“It’s not a date,” Patrick says automatically, which is the stupidest thing to say when a stalker has shown up at the door, even stupider because with the army of candles flickering on the table it definitely looks like a date.

“I’m Lisette Cabral,” says the woman, and sticks out her hand at Pete.

Pete stares at her. “Lisette,” he says. “Lisette who librettes?”

“I’m the librettist,” Lisette says, undeterred by her hand not being shaken. “Yeah. Can I come in? You’re Patrick, right?” she says to Patrick, and comes over to him with the same confident hand extended.

“Uh,” says Patrick intelligently. “Sure.”

“So,” Lisette says, as Pete comes to stand close up by Patrick’s chair. Patrick can sense the hurt indignation radiating off of him, his house having been invaded by his enemy. “I know this is unexpected.”

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees, sharply for Pete’s sake, because you shouldn’t feel invaded in your own home.

“But I thought we weren’t having productive conversations across email,” continues Lisette, as if Patrick hadn’t spoken.

“You don’t like my notes?” asks Pete tightly. “I thought they were decent notes.”

“Save them for the X-rated version of the musical. The producers want this one G-rated. Or PG, at least, I guess. But as for the rest of what the producers want: fuck ‘em,” Lisette concludes cheerfully. “You clearly have a different idea for what you want to do for the musical, and I’m all for different ideas. The ones the producers wanted me to work up were terrible. So. Why don’t we brainstorm and come up with something together?”

There is a long moment of silence, then Pete says, “Patrick and I have to go do something in my bedroom,” and tugs Patrick up and out of his chair.

“Not, like, a sex thing!” Patrick calls back to Lisette, as Pete drags him upstairs.

Pete snorts at him.

Patrick says, “What? You made it sound like a sex thing.”

“Nothing made it sound more like a sex thing than you promising it wasn’t a sex thing,” says Pete, as he closes the bedroom door behind them. “Lisette who librettes is a  _ brunette _ .”

Patrick lifts his eyebrows. “That’s what you had to drag me up here to tell me?”

“What do you think?” Pete asks.

“About?”

“Lisette! And her offer! Like, I don’t know.” Pete chews on his bottom lip.

Patrick watches the action, distracted, and says, “I don’t know. It’s up to you. Do you feel like you want to brainstorm with her?”

“Maybe. I have an idea. I have a whole thing I’m doing. And I don’t know if it makes any sense. And she’s got experience. So she might know. But I don’t know.” Pete meets his eyes. “It’s been a while since I worked with someone who wasn’t you. And Joe, and Andy.”

“So don’t, then,” Patrick says. “We can keep doing what we’re doing. Of course, at some point you’re going to have to tell me what our musical is actually  _ about _ . Unless you want me to keep writing songs blindly.”

“I feel like I’m writing the lyrics blindly. If I had a clear picture of what’s going on, I’d tell you. She might be able to help me get a clear picture, or she might try to take over and destroy everything.”

“Well, I guess, if she does that, we can always decide to stop working with her then,” Patrick suggests calmly.

“Hey,” Pete exclaims. “That’s a very reasonable idea!”

“I get those sometimes,” Patrick says drily. “That’s my part in our partnership.”

“Aww, don’t sell yourself short, Trickster, you do so many other things, too. Did you want to do a sex thing while we’re up here? I mean, you brought it up and everything…”

Patrick rolls his eyes and opens the bedroom door.

Pete catches his hand and says, “Hey. Patrick.”

Patrick looks back at him.

“It’s really rough,” Pete says. “It might be stupid. Don’t…laugh at it or anything.”

Patrick draws his eyebrows together. “Laugh at it? Pete. I’d never laugh at it.”

“I can handle Lisette laughing at it, whatever. I don’t want you to think it’s terrible.”

“I cannot imagine that I will,” Patrick says. “The lyrics are great. Pete, you know how you think everything I’ve ever done is brilliant?”

“Everything you’ve ever done  _ is _ brilliant,” says Pete.

“Yeah,” says Patrick. “See? What I’m saying is: It goes both ways, I’m just less effusive, I guess. I guess I don’t say it enough. You’re brilliant, too. I’m sure your musical is going to be brilliant. I’m sure we’re going to conquer Broadway.”

“Stumped,” Pete says.

“What?”

“Our musical called Stumped,” says Pete.

“See, we were just having a nice moment,” says Patrick, “and you had to go and ruin it.”

***

Lisette is looking at Pete’s artwork when they get back downstairs.

“How’d the sex thing go?” Lisette asks them.

“Not a sex thing,” Patrick says, but Pete just chirrups happily, “Great!”

Lisette sweeps her hand toward the art. “It’s some interesting stuff.”

“It’s mine,” says Pete warily.

“It’s cool,” she says, and lifts her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Honestly, I’m not here to fight with you. I really thought we might be able to work together here. We could get some stuff done, I think. I’m sorry I interrupted your date.”

“It wasn’t a date,” says Patrick.

Pete says, “We’ve got some songs.”

“Songs?” Lisette echoes.

“For the musical. Patrick, play her the songs.”

“They’re really not done,” Patrick hedges. “They’re very rough.”

“Right, but they have the atmosphere I’m going for,” Pete says.

Patrick sits cross-legged on the floor with Pete and uses Pete’s computer to pull up the songs. Lisette looks at them like they’re weird for sitting on the floor and sits on the couch. There’s only three songs so far,  _ You Wouldn’t Recognize a Good Thing _ ,  _ Ode to a Grecian Burn _ , and one Pete’s called  _ Somewhere Over the Rainbow Sucks _ . Patrick doesn’t debate Pete when he picks titles, he just lets him do it.

Lisette listens closely, and when the songs are done she says, “Hmm.”

Patrick says awkwardly, “They’re rough.”

“No, I know. I’m trying to hear the story that’s in them. Because there’s definitely a story in there. They’re very passionate, and there’s lots of pining, and something very…star-crossed?”

That’s what Patrick thought, too. He looks at Pete.

Pete says, “So I’ve got a story. I mean, a rough idea. Of what I want to do.”

“Okay,” Lisette says encouragingly.

“I want to retell the myth of Orpheus. Do you know the myth of Orpheus?”

“Yeah, vaguely. The guy who goes to the Underworld?”

“Right. So I want to retell it, right? So Orpheus, in the myth he’s good with music, in our musical he’s a guy in a band. So there’s still a guy in a band. He falls in love with this woman. Except the woman dies. He’s devastated, right? Wants to get her back. So he finds a way into the Underworld.”

“How?” asks Lisette.

“Our guy is stubborn. He gets stuff done.”

“He can work a miracle,” says Patrick. “Guys in bands are like that.”

Pete gives him a brilliant smile and says, “Right. So. He gets to the Underworld.”

“Uh-huh,” says Lisette, apparently unimpressed by the guy-in-a-band explanation. “We’ll work out the details. So he gets to the Underworld, and then what happens?”

“Well,” says Pete. “That’s the twist.”

Lisette raises her eyebrows. “The twist?”

“He falls in love with Hades, obviously.”

***

Lisette’s a pro, and it’s clear that she finds Pete’s process a little irritating but she’s also willing to work with him, better than Patrick would ever have supposed. He is entirely superfluous to the process, now that he knows that Pete’s okay with the whole thing. He’s not the words guy, which is fine, and he tells himself he’s okay that they quickly jump into their exclusive little story-telling world without him. He doesn’t know why he’s still there, except that it feels like it would be dramatic to get up and leave. Lisette ends up on the floor with Pete, taking notes on her laptop, so Patrick sprawls out on the couch and for lack of anything better to do dozes a little listening to them work out the plot with half an ear: Orpheus’s stunning musical talent, the allure of Eurydice, Eurydice’s tragic early death.

“You can’t make the romance between them too intense,” Lisette says, “if you want the audience to believe Orpheus falls in love with Hades later.”

“Yeah, no, it’s puppy love, you know? They’re completely incompatible for each other, they just didn’t have time to figure it out. But you know how it is. You think your entire life is wrapped up in a person and that it will end if you lose them, but that turns out not to be true. Most of the time. But you don’t know until you lose them, whether that’s true or not.”

“So,” says Lisette, “Orpheus and Eurydice are a flash in the pan, only Orpheus doesn’t know it until he meets Hades and finds the real thing.”

“Yes,” says Pete thoughtfully. “I think so. I think Hades knows before Orpheus does. Like,  _ You Wouldn’t Recognize a Good Thing _ . That’s a Hades song.”

“Why does Hades know before Orpheus does?”

“Because you know, if you’re the King of the Underworld, you know when something golden walks into your life. You recognize something incredible right away. You see it and you hang onto it for dear life and you hope some of that dazzle rubs off on you.”

There’s an awkward moment of silence. Patrick hasn’t opened his eyes but he’s definitely not dozing anymore. He feels wide awake, listening to Pete.

“That’s what you do if you’re the King of the Underworld,” Pete finishes uncomfortably.

“Okay,” says Lisette. “So how does Hades get Orpheus to feel the same way about him? What makes Orpheus forget about Eurydice and want to stay in the Underworld with Hades?”

There is a long moment of silence.

Pete says finally, “I don’t know. That’s the bit I haven’t figured out yet.”

***

Patrick doesn’t know when he falls asleep but he knows that when he wakes up it’s morning and he’s still on Pete’s couch.

Pete is still on the floor, now sprawled out on his stomach, still writing.

Patrick doesn’t see Lisette.

He stretches, rubbing at his eyes, and Pete says, “Good morning.”

Patrick grunts. “Is there coffee?”

“Not unless you want to go out for it,” replies Pete.

“In a bit.” He watches Pete write away. “Where’s Lisette?”

“She took a Lyft back to her hotel.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Nope.” Pete says it happily, popping the “p.” “We’ve got a whole outline. We’ve got places sketched out for songs. There’s a whole plan. It’s really good. I’m happy.”

He is unmistakably happy with it, which makes Patrick happy. “Good,” he says, and closes his eyes again. “How do you not have any coffee in this house?”

“I’ll make the Starbucks my treat,” Pete promises.

“You fucking better,” says Patrick.

***

Patrick is marginally more awake by the time they have Starbucks. They sit outside together without really making a conscious decision to, but Pete seems to be welcoming the break from writing.

Patrick says, “So when are you meeting up with Lisette again?”

Pete gives him a sideways glance. “Jealous?”

“Of course not,” Patrick says, which is maybe a little bit of a lie. He’s not used to Pete creating with people who aren’t him.

Pete bumps his shoulder against his. “You’re still my favorite, Patty.”

“Shut up,” says Patrick.

Pete says, “Can I ask you something?”

Patrick can feel Pete’s steady gaze on him. “Sure.”

“What do you think would make you fall in love with the King of the Underworld?”

Patrick sips his coffee, considering. Then he says, “I don’t know. Probably the same things that would make you fall in love with anybody.”

“Like what?” asks Pete. He sounds honestly perplexed.

“Like…they’re really nice to you.”

“He’s the King of the Underworld,” Pete says dubiously.

“That doesn’t mean as much as he thinks,” says Patrick confidently.

“You don’t think so?”

“I feel like that’s just his title. He can’t help that. This Orpheus guy probably gets to see the real him, and he’s not that bad. He’s just a regular guy, who thinks he’s worse than he is. That’s what Orpheus sees. I think.”

“Hmm,” says Pete thoughtfully.

Patrick shifts on the bench to look more fully at Pete. “You disagree?”

“I don’t know,” hedges Pete.

“Well, you had Orpheus fall in love with him,” Patrick points out reasonably, “so you must have had a reason for that.”

“I don’t know,” Pete says again, focusing closely on the condensation on the side of his iced coffee. “Maybe it’s wrong. Maybe Orpheus should stay with Eurydice.”

“Orpheus falls in love with Hades,” Patrick says firmly. “He’s a good guy, who’s nice, and funny, and smart, and maybe a little lonely, and just wants someone not to think he’s the worst person in the entire universe. And Orpheus can do that. So. It’s going to work out. They’re going to be happily ever after.”

Pete looks at him with something like amazement in his eyes, like he didn’t expect Patrick to be quite so vociferous in this opinion, and Patrick feels like an asshole that Pete would ever doubt how much Patrick knows that  _ Orpheus is supposed to end up with Hades _ . Pete says faintly, “Do you think so?”

“Yes,” Patrick says, and shifts a little away from Pete, as if to say,  _ finis _ . He sips his Americano, and then says, “Anyway, Hades is probably hot, so that probably helps.”

Next to him, Pete chokes out a laugh.

***

Patrick is trying not to crowd Pete and Lisette’s creative process. After all, he and Pete don’t usually write songs while in the same room anyway. So it’s not like Patrick needs to be where Pete is. He can be totally engaged in the musical from the comfort of his own house, thank you very much. He doesn’t feel left out  _ at all _ .

All the same, he is really happy when Pete calls him so he can stop wallowing in how lonely and abandoned he is.

“Yo,” Pete says to him. “Dude. Come over and help Lisette and me.”

“I don’t want to, like, step on story-telling toes,” Patrick says, because he feels like he should raise some protest, however feeble.

“You’re part of the story, too,” Pete replies, which is definitely the right response. “Come over.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, already pulling his sneakers on.

“And on the way, can you stop and pick up more beer?” says Pete.

“Are you just using me as a delivery service?” Patrick asks suspiciously.

“This is L.A., Patrick. I can get anything I want delivered, legal or il-. Why would I need to use you?”

“True,” Patrick allows.

“Of course,” says Pete, “none of the delivery boys are as pretty as you are, so there is that.”

“I’m hanging up now,” says Patrick, but he knows Pete can hear the smile in his voice, and he’s okay with that.

***

“Thank God,” Lisette says when Patrick walks in. “We need another opinion.”

Patrick is happy to be greeted so warmly, but still a little uncertain of his footing, as he relinquishes the beer to Pete. “I’m happy to try to help, but words aren’t really my thing.”

“She says she’s no good with words, but I’m worse,” says Pete.

Patrick laughs.

“He’s kind of a nightmare to work with,” Lisette says. “I admire you.”

“Oh,” says Patrick, smiling. “I remember those days. We used to throw punches at each other when we were trying to write songs in the early days. I don’t know why I didn’t just quit the band.”

“I wouldn’t let you,” says Pete simply, handing him a beer and then sitting on the floor opposite him with one for himself and one for Lisette.

“He was so mean about how terrible my lyrics were. My lyrics were fine.”

“Your lyrics were okay,” says Pete. “They were embarrassing.”

“You just said they were okay!” protests Patrick.

“Yes. Okay lyrics are embarrassing, Patrick.”

“God,” sighs Patrick.

“Maybe we should get started,” suggests Lisette.

Pete says, “Okay, okay, okay, here’s the deal. We’ve got, like, a bunch here. Whole scenes and everything. We’ve just got these little bits and pieces where we keep getting stuck.”

“The major transition moments,” Lisette says. “I’m trying to get us to nail down the major moments, so we get the structure in shape, and then getting the songs to fit in will feel more organic and elastic, all at the same time.”

“Okay,” says Patrick, who never used to have to think about how his songs would fit into things before and is a little worried at having to think about now. He looks at Pete, who looks very calm, and thinks that Pete’s job is infinitely harder, making his ordinarily disjointed lyrics fit into a story, and if Pete can be calm about it, surely Patrick can pull off finding the melodies for Pete’s words the way he usually does.

“But we can’t tell how well it’s all hanging together,” Pete says. “And we’ve got a few…glaring holes.”

“I keep telling him it’s awesome,” says Lisette. “And we’re super far along for how long we’ve been working on it.”

“I think she’s lying to me and that she’s going to take our musical back to the producers in New York and make it about a pig again,” says Pete.

“I swear to God, I am not going to do that,” Lisette says fervently. “No pigs in our musical, I  _ promise _ .”

“Lisette, if you pull off no pigs, you can be an honorary member of Fall Out Boy. Joe and Andy would totally agree.”

“What’s it mean to be an honorary member of Fall Out Boy?” asks Lisette.

“Nothing,” says Patrick drily. “That’s why Joe and Andy would agree.”

“Shh, Patrick,” says Pete, “we’re totally a big deal, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“Okay, what’s this musical I’ve been promised?” asks Patrick. “Can I read it?”

“Let’s act it,” Lisette says suddenly.

“What?” says Pete.

“Let’s act it out. You be Orpheus, I’ll be Eurydice. The acting will be better, we’ll get to make sure our point gets across to Patrick.”

Pete shrugs.

And then they start acting.

It’s good, Patrick thinks. Rough still, and Lisette has to break into the flow a couple of times to be like, “Something happens there, we’re not sure what, and then we move on to this scene,” or “Here’s where some kind of song is going to go,” but it’s good. Orpheus and Eurydice have the sort of sweet, shallow romance that Patrick’s seen done a thousand times, and he’s waiting for them to break up so something more interesting can happen. Eurydice dies, and Orpheus is devastated.

“Really dramatic song here,” Pete says, using his hands to imitate fireworks in the air. “Orpheus is really upset.”

“Okay,” says Patrick, taking mental notes.

“But not too dramatic,” Lisette says. “Because you need to save a lot of Orpheus’s drama for after he meets Hades. That’s going to be the challenge of this show. You can write your love song for Orpheus and Eurydice but you need to hold back, because it can’t be as beautiful as the love song for Orpheus and Hades. Like. It can’t be a ‘Your Eyes’ situation where Orpheus has a song to show his enormous love for Hades but it’s worse than everything else in the show.”

“Sure,” Patrick says blankly, making another mental note to look up what “Your Eyes” is. “Totally.”

“So Orpheus goes to the Underworld to get Eurydice,” Lisette continues, narrating the action with her eyes on the script. “He earns his way there through the power of song. Hades, everyone tells him, loves music. And he doesn’t get a whole lot of it in the Underworld. And Orpheus? As we all know from everything that’s happened so far in the play, Orpheus has the voice of an angel. So Orpheus sings his way into the Underworld. Orpheus meets Hades.”

There is a long moment of silence.

“And then what happens?” Patrick asks, annoyed at the cliffhanger.

Lisette looks up from the laptop. “We don’t know. We’re stuck. This is one of those ‘glaring holes’ Pete mentioned. I mean, Orpheus and Hades fall in love, clearly. We know that much. We’re just working out how.”

“Well,” says Patrick, “but you just said how. Hades loves music. Orpheus is good at music.”

“Music is enough for them to fall in love?” Lisette asks skeptically.

“When music is the true love of your life,” says Patrick, “then yes, finding someone who feels the way you do about music is pretty life-changing. Finding someone who speaks your musical language is a big thing.”

“Finding someone who makes your music better is the big thing,” says Pete.

“Right,” says Patrick. “Right. Because you have Hades, the King of the Underworld, and he loves music, he  _ loves _ music, it’s all he wants in his life. But he feels like the odds are against him, he feels like he can’t get to it, like the music he makes isn’t the music he wants to make and everyone around him keeps telling him to give up and move on.”

“And then Orpheus shows up,” says Pete. “And it’s love at first sight. Hades is smitten by this golden voice, this blithe talent who showed up in the Underworld, so casually brilliant.”

“Meanwhile,” says Patrick, smiling, “Orpheus is totally unimpressed with Hades. He thought he’d be taller.”

“And Hades’s taste is totally, like, smug bratty assholes. He has issues.”

“He’s King of the Underworld,” says Patrick. “You’d expect him to have issues.”

“But Orpheus doesn’t seem bothered by them,” Pete says. “Orpheus stays, and writes music, like…like Hades being King of the Underworld is no big deal, and it doesn’t matter, and he likes being there and making music with him, and how is Hades supposed to go back to life without that? Orpheus makes him feel like a regular person for the first time in his entire life.”

“Orpheus does like being there,” Patrick says, “and making music with him, because Hades is funny, and kind, and more weird and unpredictable and interesting and exciting than anyone Orpheus has ever met before, and how is Orpheus is supposed to go back to regular life when Hades makes him feel like he’s the most amazing person in the world just for  _ existing _ ?”

“So that’s what they do,” says Lisette, and Patrick jumps, startled, because he totally forgot she was in the room. “Hades makes Orpheus feels like he’s more amazing than he is, and Orpheus makes Hades feel like he’s more ordinary than he is, but that’s what each of them needs, so it works perfectly.”

There’s a moment of silence.

Then Pete says dazedly, “Right. Right. Yeah. That’s what happens.”

Lisette smiles brightly at Patrick. “I don’t know why you don’t think you’re good with words. That was great.”

“Yeah,” says Patrick. He sips his beer and glances at Pete, who looks back at him with his bright tawny eyes, and then looks away after a moment.  

***

“You can stay,” Pete says when Lisette’s getting ready to leave and Patrick’s offered to drive her to the hotel.

Patrick is collecting the detritus from their takeout dinner, and Pete’s offer feels awkward and stilted to him. Under ordinary circumstances, he would just stay, and they’d watch a movie, and Pete would make stupid observations, and that would be their evening. But he’s well aware it’s not ordinary circumstances, and he feels anxious and jittery. He feels like he needs air to breathe.

He feels like he understands why Orpheus might need to take a break from the Underworld every once in a while.

He says, “Uh, yeah, I know, but I’ll give Lisette a lift and then I think I’m just going to go home and crash. I’ve got, like, a headache.” It’s the worst lie Patrick’s ever told.

The fact that Pete doesn’t call him on it is  _ even worse _ . “Oh, no, I hope you feel better.”

“Writing musicals gives me a headache,” says Patrick wanly.

“Aww,” says Lisette, coming back over to them. “Sorry about that. It’s a good start, though! Now we just have to come up with a plot.”

Pete looks at her in alarm. “What?”

“You know, like, a plot. Something happening.”

“But something is happening,” Pete protests.

“What?” asks Lisette simply.

“Orpheus and Hades are falling in love.”

“Right,” says Lisette. “But that’s not a plot. What’s the hurdle they have to overcome?”

“He’s the King of the Underworld,” says Pete, sounding incredulous.

“But what’s the pre-intermission obstacle that propels them into the second act?” persists Lisette.

Pete just blinks at her.

“I think Hades spirals out a little bit and shaves his head onstage,” says Patrick mildly, because he can’t resist it.

Pete gives him a look.

Lisette says, “That might be dramatic, but probably not what we’re looking for.”

“Patrick thinks he’s being smart,” says Pete.

“I’ve been smart all night,” says Patrick, and then wonders why he says it.

Pete doesn’t say anything in response.

Lisette says, “You don’t have to drive me, Patrick, I can totally call a Lyft—”

“I’ll drive you,” says Patrick, and then looks at Pete, who’s frowning, and it’s weirdly like they’re fighting, even though they’re not fighting. At least, Patrick doesn’t think they are. They don’t generally fight like this, in this silent and reflective way. They are usually loud fighters.

He doesn’t think they’re fighting, but just to be sure he says, “I’ll call you later.”

“Yeah,” Pete agrees, without hesitation, so they’re not fighting.

They’re not fighting. Patrick knows they’re not. Patrick knows exactly what’s going on. They’re too close to the edge of the cliff and it’s crumbling underneath them and they’re flailing for balance, is what’s going on. Which is a melodramatic enough way of thinking about it that Patrick thinks how much Pete and his lyrics have rubbed off on him over the years.

“You okay?” Lisette asks as they drive, and he realizes how quiet he’s being.

“Fine,” he says tightly.

“Headache, right?” she says, sympathetically.

“Yeah, long day.”

“Good day. Thank you for coming over. He works better when you’re around. Easier to deal with.”

Patrick knows this – he’s been told it before – but he’s not really in the mood for The Pete and Patrick Show at the moment.

Or he’s in every sort of mood for it.

Fuck if he knows.

Lisette goes on. “I guess you really get to know each other’s creative quirks after so many years together. I haven’t really found someone I gelled with enough creatively to just keep making musicals with them, and it’s kind of annoying having to learn someone new every single time. Whereas you two can make something together without even having to think about it.”

“Yeah,” says Patrick, because he can’t deny it. “We can. Now. But, like I said, it was a rough beginning. It wasn’t always that way. It isn’t always that way, even now.”

“Well, yeah, obviously. You’re both forceful personalities. I can’t believe the producers thought they’d just be able to push that weird  _ Charlotte’s Web _ musical onto you.” Lisette chuckles.

Patrick says, “Do you think they’ll like this Orpheus idea?”

“We’ll make them like it. It’s a good one, it’s solid, we’ll keep working on it. Plus, you and Pete are excited about it, and that will make the songs better.”

“Pete’s excited about it,” Patrick corrects.

“What?”

“It’s Pete’s idea.”

“Yeah, but you obviously love it. You were super into it. It’s great. You’re sweet to want to keep giving Pete all the credit, but you’re a good storyteller, too.”

He isn’t a good storyteller, he thinks. He’s a terrible storyteller. It’s Pete who tells the stories. Patrick just… Patrick just loses the thread between fact and fiction, folds everything all into a jumble, with the cliff crumbling under his feet and a story in his head that might be true. He isn’t telling a single story right now. Or he’s telling all of them.

They’re at Lisette’s hotel, and Patrick’s relieved not to have to come up with anything else to say. Conversation is more than he wants at the moment.

Lisette says cheerfully, “Thanks for the ride! See you tomorrow! I hope you feel better!” as she gets out of the car.

Patrick rests his head against the steering wheel until somebody behind him honks a horn at him, and then he starts driving.

He feels restless. He feels like there’s a song in his head that he can’t quite hear yet. He feels like Lisette should have said,  _ What’s the deal with you and Pete? _ Because that’s what everyone’s going to say. That’s what everyone always says.  _ What’s the deal with you and Pete? _ And Patrick has dozens of different canned responses to that question but the one he knows in his heart is that there’s a line drawn in the sand between them, drawn years ago, and neither of them can remember who drew it, but they do know the rule has always been never to cross it, and for all of their famously effortless comfort with each other, there is always the precarious off-balanceness of the line that must be avoided at all costs, and they have just  _ lived  _ like this, automatically, without speaking of it, for more years than Patrick would ever have thought they could have lasted. They left the line there, and sometimes it widened into a moat, and sometimes it grew up into a wall, and sometimes it shrank to the size of a fucking pin. But at all times it still stayed  _ there _ .

“Why?” Patrick asks his windshield, and it’s the first time in his entire life he’s asked this out loud. He’s asked it silently, during sleepless nights when he missed Pete, or during sleepless night when Pete was curled tight up against him, or during long bus rides when there was nothing to do but watch Pete’s animated face as he talked at him, or sometimes disastrously during shows when Pete would sidle up against him and try to match their heaving breaths together.  _ Why? _ Patrick’s brain might ask, and the lyrics might answer, the fucked-up-ness of Pete’s life and every relationship but this one, this one golden one Pete drew lines in the sand around and treats with kid fucking gloves.

Patrick executes a neat U-turn as soon as he has the opportunity. An illegal one, too, but whatever. He’s a rock star, he has to break some laws sometimes, keep things interesting.

He lets himself into Pete’s house without preamble, because that’s their thing, isn’t it? Another of their things. Keys to each other’s houses and encouraged entrances whenever they want,  _ that _ doesn’t cross the fucking line.

Pete is sprawled on his couch watching something on television and gives him a sardonic look. “Did your headache go away?”

“I know the obstacle,” Patrick says. He’s surprised by how out of breath he is.

“What obstacle?” asks Pete.

“Between Orpheus and Hades. You want to know what it is?”

Pete sits up warily, suddenly guarded. “Yes?” he says, as if he’s not sure.

“Hades won’t kiss Orpheus. He doesn’t want Orpheus to have to stay in the Underworld with him. He doesn’t want to ruin his life. That’s the obstacle, isn’t it? Isn’t that always the obstacle? Orpheus is so golden –  _ so fucking golden _ – he’s the thing that can’t be touched.”

Pete’s silent for a moment, then he says slowly, “I don’t think Lisette would think that’s really a plot, per se.”

“Shut up,” Patrick snaps. “We’re talking about us. You know we’re talking about us, I know we’re talking about us. Stand up.”

“What?” says Pete.

“Stand up,” Patrick repeats impatiently, tugging him up. “This entire fucking musical you’re writing is about us.”

Pete looks skittish, concerned, ready to bolt. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No, I don’t want you to stop. I want you to pay attention to what Hades’s problem is. Because Hades has no control over whether or not  _ Orpheus _ decides to kiss  _ him _ .”

And then Patrick Stump kisses Pete Wentz.

Patrick Stump kisses Pete Wentz, and it’s nothing like how he imagined it would be when he finally kissed Pete with teeth and tongue and his hands in Pete’s hair and Pete’s hands at his belt, it’s nothing like how he imagined because there has been nothing like this in the universe, not ever before.

Pete is gasping against him, “Don’t tell me to stop,  _ please _ don’t tell me to stop,” desperate little pleas like he really thinks Patrick might and Patrick is dizzy with how wrong Pete is.

“Don’t stop,” he tries to say, but it might be swept into the kiss. “Don’t ever stop.”

Or maybe Pete hears it, because he leans back only so he can take Patrick’s t-shirt off and then leans right back in.

That’s such a good idea, Patrick thinks dazedly, bunching his hands into Pete’s shirt, and then his foot catches on something and he stumbles backward, finding himself sprawled on Pete’s staircase, which isn’t exactly comfortable.

“Hey,” he remarks, “this probably isn’t a good place to—” Pete’s hand on his crotch changes his mind. “Jesus Christ,” he says breathlessly, “okay, fine, we can stay here.”

“Patrick,” Pete says. “Patrick, Patrick, Patrick. Patrick, Patrick, Patrick.” He nuzzles his way over every bit of skin he can touch, murmuring Patrick’s name endlessly, breathing it like a prayer, and Patrick has never heard his name said this way before, said  _ this way _ , like Pete is ceaselessly verifying the fact of Patrick underneath him, cataloging him,  _ This bit is Patrick, and that bit is Patrick, and this bit over here, too _ .

He finally stops, his face pressed into Patrick’s chest, breathing hard, and then he lifts his head up and smiles at him brilliantly. “Hi.”

“Hi,” says Patrick.

“This is not a comfortable position,” says Pete.

“No,” Patrick agrees. “It’s not.”

Pete swipes his thumb over Patrick’s well-kissed lower lip. “You’ve got the best mouth. We are going to do great things with this mouth of yours.”

“What about your mouth?” manages Patrick. “Can we do things with your mouth, too?”

Pete’s mouth chuckles. “Yeah, totally, but they won’t be as great as the things we do with your mouth because I’m me and you’re you.”

“Pete,” Patrick says, “we’re totally going to have a really in-depth discussion about how you’re not the King of the Underworld but that conversation’s going to happen post-orgasm.”

“Post-orgasm?” repeats Pete, grinning wildly like Patrick is incredible, which is frankly Pete’s default expression most of the time, Patrick has to admit.

“Post-orgasm.”

Pete catches Patrick up in a kiss. “Who talks like that?”

“I talk like that,” Patrick tells him, and kisses him back.

“Come up to my bedroom, let me show you where the magic happens,” says Pete.

“Who talks like  _ that _ ?” counters Patrick.

Pete laughs, and kisses Patrick’s nose, and then says, abruptly serious and somber, “I have loved you our entire lives.” As if there’s any possibility Patrick doesn’t know that.

So he replies, just as serious and somber, “I know. You’ve always told me.”

“I just want to say it again,” says Pete.

“I love you, too,” says Patrick.

“I feel like bursting into song,” Pete says. “Musicals make sense now.”

Patrick says, “I’m so glad you’re evidently the soul of comfort laying on top of me like this but these stairs are fucking uncomfortable.”

Pete laughs. He lets Patrick up. He tugs him into his bedroom and he pushes him down on the bed and then he says hesitatingly, “Patrick, I…” like he thinks now Patrick should come to his senses and change his mind.

So Patrick sits up instead, and reaches for Pete, pulls him in and says, “It’s you. It’s always been you. It’s been you all along. You were never alone.”

And Pete, after a second, smiles again. “I know. You have never let me be alone.” He kisses him, fast and firm, and then says, all Pete-playful again, “How can I ever repay you for that?”

“I’ve got ideas,” Patrick murmurs, catching Pete’s head in his hands so he can kiss him just as long and languorous and wet as he wants.

“Good idea,” Pete manages at the end of the kiss.

 

“I’ve kind of got a whole fucking checklist,” Patrick says, and tugs Pete’s lower lip between his teeth.

“Oh, good,” Pete gasps. “What was item one?”

“Let me demonstrate,” says Patrick, and flips them over.

***

Pete’s room is quiet, and bright because Pete must have turned the light on when they got in and neither of them is moving anytime soon to shut it off, and their legs are tangled in the sheets they kicked to the end of the bed, and Patrick’s head is buzzing with sex. Everything around him seems in high relief, more saturated in color than usual, and he feels so light he could float away, and so happy that he must be incandescent with it, and when Pete clears his throat and says, “In the morning,” it takes Patrick a very long moment to catch up to the tone of his voice.

“What?” Patrick says, and his head is so fuzzy, he doesn’t understand why Pete seems to want to string words together into sentences right now. Maybe that’s just Pete, endless words, whereas Patrick feels like his skin is humming and his blood is singing.

“In the morning,” Pete continues, in that faux-casual tone clothed in studied confidence, “if you want to, like, pretend this never happened, that’s cool.”

Patrick scrunches up his face in distaste and looks over at Pete. They’re both sprawled on their stomachs, but they’re not touching, and for the first time Patrick’s sex-drunk brain processes how odd that is. Pete is usually  _ always _ touching him. “What? Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know,” Pete says. “Morning light is…different light. Everything looks different in the morning.”

In the back of Patrick’s headspace, where rational thought is still existing, the ability to be irritated by Pete lurks and lumbers its way back to life. “Yeah, that’s true when you pick up some scene girl after a show and the venue’s shutting the lights off all around you. There is nothing morning could bring that I don’t already know.”

“I didn’t do that nearly as often as I wanted you to think,” says Pete, like the overblown nature of his Lothario reputation is some huge confession instead of Patrick figured out about him in, like, ten minutes flat.

Patrick repeats firmly, “There is nothing that I don’t already know.”

“Really? Because I feel like there’s a  _ lot _ I don’t know,” says Pete, sounding genuinely bewildered. “Starting with why.”

Patrick doesn’t get what’s to be bewildered about. To him, the events of this evening are so obvious that his nagging confusion is only why they didn’t happen years ago. “Why?”

“Why would you kiss me?”

“You’re asking the wrong why. Why would I kiss you? How long have you been in love with me?”

“Since the first time I saw you, you know that.”

“So the question isn’t why I would kiss you, the question is why the fuck I hadn’t kissed you way before this.”

“Okay,” Pete agrees equably. “So why now, then?”

Patrick looks at him, and thinks the answer is both complicated and simple. He says, instead of really answering it, “When we were kids…” And then considers the statement and starts over, “Well. When we were kids, I thought I was the only one who was a kid, and you were impossibly old.”

“I also thought I was impossibly old,” says Pete, and Patrick smiles at him.

“You’d been in, like, eighteen bands by the time I met you.”

“I hadn’t,” says Pete. “It wasn’t  _ eighteen _ .”

“It was something. It was something more than what I’d been in. And I was this kid who’d never sung before and had stage fright, and you were like, ‘No, no, you’ll be great, you’ll be the best ever,’ and I was like, Fucking hell, Pete Wentz walked in and said I was going to be the best ever, whatever you do, kid, don’t fuck it up. Even if Pete Wentz turned out to be way shorter than he was supposed to be.”

“Fuck you,” Pete says without heat, “you always bring that up like you’re some kind of Paul Bunyan.”

“Paul Bunyan’s the reference you’re going with there?”

“I’m sticking to that, yeah,” says Pete.

Patrick loves him so much it’s like someone is sitting on his chest, the pressure on his heart makes it difficult to breathe. He has always loved him this much but it’s like he never let himself  _ feel  _ it before, not like this, with Pete’s bruises on his body and Pete’s taste in his mouth. “I’m just saying, I was like… _ stupid _ over you. I couldn’t… You’re like everything parents warn their kids to stay away from, you were completely addictive to me, I loved you more than our  _ music _ , which seemed impossible to me before it happened, loving something more than  _ music _ , but there was you and…I couldn’t imagine ever loving anything in the universe the way I loved you.”

There is a long moment of silence.

“And then?” prompts Pete, like he’s waiting for the other to shoe to drop.

Patrick loves and loves and loves and he’s going to relish the day when Pete stops waiting for the other shoe to drop. “And then I was right: I never loved anything in the universe the way I love you. You had to know how I felt about you.”

“In the beginning, yes. You were obvious. You were also a kid, and you were fucking belligerent to me.”

“I had an odd way of showing affection,” Patrick allows.

He means it as a joke but Pete doesn’t laugh. Pete says, “People don’t usually…think I’m awesome and then keep thinking I’m awesome. Like, that doesn’t happen. And it felt like that’s what happened with you, kind of. You grew up, and you stopped looking at me like I’d invented chords just for you, and I thought…that’s what happens. You figure out who I am, you move on.”

“I have never moved on,” Patrick says. “I’ve always been right here. Christ, most of the time I have been  _ right here in this bed _ . I stopped mooning over you because it stopped being a hero-worship crush and started being this genuine thing where yes, I saw you clear as day and I was still ready to be here for it. I never left.  _ You _ left.”

Pete doesn’t say anything. They look across at each other over the expanse of mattress between them, from their opposite pillows, for a long time. And then Pete draws in breath to speak.

Patrick cuts him off. “Are you going to apologize?”

“I mean,” says Pete.

“I don’t want an apology. You didn’t fuck it up. You didn’t even  _ almost _ fuck it up. You’ve been more careful with me than anything in your life, and I’ve always noticed. The answer to the question of why now I’m suddenly not willing to be the thing you keep behind glass is that I’m sitting here watching you write this musical and in your head you can’t figure out how it ends because you can’t see a way that Hades gets Orpheus, and that’s the most absurd thing, Pete. He’s had Orpheus all along, the whole time. Orpheus needs to knock some sense into him. You see? It’s a love story. In your own way.”

There’s another pause.

Then Pete says, “I told you so.”

Patrick blinks. Of all the reactions for Pete to have, he didn’t expect that one. “What?”

Pete shrugs. “I told you so.”

“In what way,” says Patrick, “in what  _ universe _ , are you going to take credit for being  _ right _ about this, when you would still be jerking off alone in the shower right now had it not been for my carpe-fucking-diem moment.”

Pete looks benignly unimpressed with Patrick’s awesomeness. “I said we should write a musical, and you had this whole fit about how all I want to do is have filthy sex with opportunities, but I’m a total genius, it was really important for us to write this musical, hence: I told you so.”

“You’re an asshole,” Patrick tells him.

“So much,” says Pete.

“I’m not leaving,” says Patrick.

“Okay,” says Pete, and his voice is soft but he sounds like he believes it.

“I won’t leave in the morning, either,” says Patrick. “I’m going to wake up right here. And speaking of. Do not even tell me Pete Wentz doesn’t cuddle after sex, I have never seen you choose a sleeping position so far away from me.”

“I didn’t want to crowd you,” says Pete.

Patrick wonders if this is how other people are with Pete, if they tell him that he crowds them, if that’s why he seems to relax so much when he gets to push his way into Patrick’s personal space. Patrick says, “All you have ever done in our entire relationship is crowd me, and now suddenly you think that’s going to make me leave? Pete, there’s nothing I don’t know, okay? There’s nothing I don’t know.”

Pete moves then, cuddling tight up against Patrick, and Patrick gets why other people might feel crowded, Patrick’s still overheated and still a bit damp and sweaty and Pete isn’t helping matters. What he doesn’t get is how anyone in the universe could ever have Pete Wentz cuddle tight up against them, burrowed into the human contact, feeling his breaths even out and his heartbeat so close, and ask him for space.

Patrick is crowded and confined and he sleeps like a baby.

***

Patrick wakes to his phone ringing, and he has to push himself out from underneath his Pete Wentz blanket to find it. Pete grumbles angrily and curls himself around Patrick’s pillow, glaring at him, like it’s Patrick’s fault his phone is ringing. He finds it in the pocket of his discarded jeans, curses the fact that he left his glasses on the nightstand by the bed so it takes him a second to translate the blurry word as  _ Lisette _ , and then he winces and answers with, “Hello?”

“Patrick! Hi!” says Lisette cheerfully.

What fucking time is it? Patrick wonders sourly, squinting toward the clock by Pete’s bed. Which is…blinking 12:00, because God forbid Pete worry about something as pedestrian as time. “Hi,” he manages.

“Are you with Pete?”

Patrick lies without thinking, which is  _ so stupid _ , because under ordinary circumstances he would definitely be with Pete and he would definitely just say he was with Pete. But he’s now  _ naked _ with Pete, and Pete has woken up enough to be leering at him from the bed and making dramatically obscene gestures that Patrick can see even without his glasses, and Patrick frowns and turns his back on him and lies. “No.”

Pete wolf-whistles behind him.

Patrick is going to  _ kill _ him.

“His phone’s going straight to voicemail,” Lisette says.

Patrick turns back to Pete, who is honest to God now lazily stroking his dick like that’s appropriate behavior.  _ Where is your phone? _ Patrick mouths to him. Pete looks elaborately perplexed and doesn’t stop his hand’s motion. Patrick watches it only a little.

“Patrick?” Lisette says.

“Um,” says Patrick, and closes his eyes. “Right. His phone is probably dead, I guess. Or something. That’s Pete for you. Always a…dead phone.” On the bed, Pete gives an artful little breathy gasp and Patrick refuses to open his eyes.

“Do you think he’s still sleeping? I don’t want to go over there and wake him up.”

Patrick peeks at Pete through one eye. “Yeah, he’s probably still sleeping.”

_ For a while _ , Pete mouths at him, using his free hand to make a motion Patrick interprets as  _ delay her long enough for us to have sex _ .

Patrick says, “He’s probably going to sleep for, like, a few more hours.”

Pete gives him a thumbs-up. With his free hand. His other hand remains occupied.

Lisette says, “…A few more hours?”

Fuck, what time is it? Patrick wonders again. “I mean. You know Pete. Or maybe you don’t. He’s a weird sleeper.”

“…Okay,” says Lisette.

“So anyway. I’ll see you over at Pete’s in a few hours. Bye.” Patrick ends the call and says to Pete, “You need to charge your phone.”

“Wow, I cannot tell you how low that is on my to-do list, bro,” says Pete.

Patrick hooks his phone up on Pete’s charger, since Pete’s apparently not going to use it.

Pete says, “You were supposed to ask me what’s higher than that on my to-do list.”

Patrick tries to bite down on his smirk. “Oh, was I?”

“Don’t even try,” Pete says, “your dick’s totally giving you away. Come back to bed.”

Patrick gives in. He goes back to bed. He stretches out over Pete, jarring Pete’s hand out of the way and trapping their erections in between them. “Got to tell you,” he says, fingering the hickey he left on the base of Pete’s neck, “things look even better by morning-light.”

Pete smiles at him. “Did you tell Lisette you weren’t with me?”

“Yes,” Patrick says, and knows he’s flushing because it was a stupid thing to say.

“I like it,” says Pete, wriggling underneath him. “I will happily be your illicit lover, Mr. Stump.”

“I think it’s way too late for us to be anything illicit,” remarks Patrick.

“No, no, this is a good idea.” Pete is enthusiastic with his new plan. “Let’s be illicit now that actual sex is involved. We were only licit when there wasn’t sex.”

“‘Licit’ isn’t a word,” Patrick says.

“Yeah, it is,” says Pete. “It totally is. It means the opposite of ‘illicit.’ Do I need to teach you about the meaning of the prefix ‘il-’?”

“Only if you want us to never have sex ever again,” says Patrick.

Pete laughs. “Hey, Tricky, do you want your glasses on so you can see how spectacularly I’m going to blow you?”

“Put your money where your mouth is,” says Patrick.

“I’ll put my mouth where your dick is,” says Pete gleefully.

Patrick says, “God, I can’t get over how jealous everyone must be of my poetic lover wooing me with his romantic lyrics.”

“I’m alright in bed, but I’m better with a pen,” says Pete, rolling Patrick over.

“The kid was alright but it went to his head,” Patrick replies.

“Let’s test the theory,” says Pete, and goes down on him.

And the thing about a Pete Wentz blowjob is…it’s a Pete Wentz blowjob, so it’s sloppy and messy and full-tilt, immediately at a hundred miles an hour, recklessly enthusiastic, obsessively dedicated, and Patrick’s head sees it in sharp electric blues and deep engulfing purples and a burst of neon yellow that explodes into a white that’s whiter than white when he comes.

Pete doesn’t swallow, pulling off, and the end result is Patrick starts his morning a huge mess, and he sighs and says, “All those lyrics about swallowing, seriously?” but he’s panting and boneless so probably it’s not effective annoyance.

“We’re going to go take a shower together,” Pete says, “I’m not wasting a swallow on a blowjob right before a shower, like, think strategically, Patrick. Come get me off in the shower.” Pete slides out of bed.

“Yup,” Patrick says. “Any second now.” He admires the view of Pete disappearing into the en-suite, all that ink and skin on display, and then closes his eyes, listening to the shower turning on.

Pete says loudly from the shower, “Hello? Yes? L.A.’s Best Escort Service? Oh, great. This is Pete Wentz and I’m naked and lonely in the shower and I’m wondering if you could send your very best escort over, I am totally not picky.” There’s a dramatic pause, then Pete says, “Oh, wonderful, thank you. Please tell her to let herself in and ignore the naked rock star in my bed, he’s no one.”

“Your phone is dead downstairs!” Patrick shouts to him in reminder, but he’s laughing and he knows Pete will be able to hear that.

“How do you know I don’t have a landline in my bathroom?” Pete calls back.

“Because I’ve been in your bathroom before, asshole,” says Patrick, but he pulls himself out of bed and into the shower.

And, actually, showering with Pete is better than any shower Patrick’s ever taken with anyone else ever before, and Pete clings to Patrick’s shoulders and pulls at Patrick’s hair and gasps Patrick’s name gorgeously as Patrick brings him off, and somewhere inside of Patrick the sixteen-year-old version of him is utterly amazed at what he turns out to be able to do to Pete Wentz, would never have believed the way Pete collapses against him and nuzzles at his neck and murmurs, “I’d totally let you eat me alive, is that weird?”

Patrick says into a mouthful of Pete’s wet hair, “I wish my sixteen-year-old self could see this.”

“I do not, as that would be against the law,” says Pete. “There’s this whole age of consent  _ thing _ .”

“I know about that,” says Patrick. “I love that you always think you’re the only one who knows anything about laws.”

“Can we just live in the shower?” asks Pete sleepily.

“No,” says Patrick. “Lisette is coming over, eventually. Hey, do you know what time it is?”

“Time is a pointless human construct,” says Pete.

“We’re humans,” Patrick points out.

Pete presses his nose against Patrick’s cheek in a motion that is so utterly Pete, that has been a Pete gesture of affection toward Patrick from the very beginning, and something about it makes Patrick go still. Because there’s something new about all of this, and there’s something so  _ old _ about all of this. This is Pete, his Pete, just a little bit more his, and Patrick really means it, he really wishes he could tell the past version of him what he was going to get someday, how much it was worth waiting for it.

Pete says softly, “This has been the best morning. The best morning. Tell me every day of our lives will start just like this.”

“Pete,” Patrick says helplessly, because that is clearly not true.

Pete shakes his head and says, “Love me like that. Love me with extravagant promises. Tell me bald-faced lies but make them sound so pretty. I want to be loved like that, in impossible, implausible ways.”

Patrick isn’t sure he’s quite the person for that. He isn’t sure he’s prone to the impossible or the implausible. But he puts his lips to Pete’s ear and he promises in a low voice, “I promise that I will love you every morning as extravagantly as I can.”

And Pete beams at him and says, “That is such a good promise, Trick, thank you, I’ll love you back the same way,” and kisses him to seal it.

***

Patrick has a towel wrapped awkwardly around his waist, which Pete seems to think is  _ hilarious _ .

“I have seen you  _ naked _ , what is the  _ point _ ?” Pete is walking around naked very happily, clearly seeing no point in towels.

Patrick ignores him. He says, “I didn’t think this through.”

“What through?” asks Pete, blessedly pulling underwear on.

“I don’t have any clothes here.”

Pete gives him a look. “I mean. Your clothes aren’t  _ that _ dirty. My, my, how old and snobby we have gotten, I knew you when you’d wear the same pair of underwear for an entire week.”

“That was gross. That should never have been happening. You should have said something.”

Pete shrugs, unconcerned, pulling on jeans. “I was also wearing the same underwear all week.”

“We should have died,” Patrick says. “We should have caught weird diseases from dirtiness and died.”

“You know how you wanted your sixteen-year-old self to see gross sex things in the shower because you’re a disgusting person?”

“No,” Patrick says. “That is not what happened.”

“I want your sixteen-year-old self to see you over here in a  _ towel _ dithering about putting on a pair of dirty underwear. Here.” Pete thrusts a pair of underwear into his hands. “Just wear mine. Actually. This is a great idea. Wow. I am going to enjoy the fact of this  _ all day _ . You are never allowed to bring any of your own underwear over here, you’re just going to wear mine all the time, this is so great.” Pete is practically bouncing with joy. “Let me see if I can find you a shirt, too.”

“You know we’re not, like, really the same size,” says Patrick delicately, regarding Pete’s underwear dubiously.

Pete thrusts a shirt at Patrick now, gleeful. “Try it on.”

It’s some terrible sleeveless shirt with some logo on the front of it Patrick doesn’t recognize. “Pete,” he says, and sighs at his pasty white arms contrasted against the black.

“That looks  _ great _ ,” says Pete. “I mean, you’re still wearing a towel, so that looks stupid, but the shirt looks great.”

“This isn’t some kind of gang symbol, is it?” Patrick asks skeptically.

“‘Gang symbol,’ what the fuck, Patrick, where do you  _ come _ from?”

“Wilmette,” says Patrick.

“You can take the boy out of Wilmette,” says Pete. “It’s not a gang symbol, idiot.”

Patrick looks at his reflection in Pete’s mirror. “I think I have a cardigan in my car,” he says.

Pete snorts, and then leans his chin on Patrick’s shoulder. He looks serious all of a sudden. “You know how Hades keeps Orpheus?”

“Luckily Orpheus really likes assholes?” Patrick suggests.

“He says, ‘Hey, let’s start a band.’ He says, ‘Hey, I’ll make you a star.’”

“Yeah, but Orpheus already has a band,” Patrick says. “He’s already a star. And anyway, that was never why I stayed. I mean. I could have joined a million other bands. There were other bands. This one had you. And even while I was cursing the day you were born because you were walking behind me erasing every lyric I wrote, I didn’t leave because you were you. Orpheus stays with Hades because he likes Hades. Hades doesn’t bribe him. Hades only thinks he’s bribing him.”

“Maybe there’s a battle of the bands,” muses Pete.

Patrick gives him a look through the mirror. “The Greek gods are going to have a battle of the bands?”

“Dude, those Greek gods were always having dick-measuring contests over something. They would  _ totally _ have a battle of the bands. And Hades never wins because shades don’t sing with soul. But look what Hades has now. A kid with a soul voice.” Pete smiles at Patrick through the mirror. “Lucky Hades.”

“So Orpheus is about to retrieve Eurydice and get out of the Underworld for good, except then he hears there’s going to be a battle of the bands and he’s like, ‘Hey, never mind, can’t pass up a battle of the bands opportunity.’”

“I mean,” says Pete, “you keep saying Orpheus is already in love with Hades. He’s looking for any excuse to stay in the Underworld. A battle of the bands is a good excuse.”

“It’s a stupid excuse,” says Patrick.

“That’s why Eurydice is going to be super-unimpressed with you.”

“Not with  _ me _ ,” says Patrick. “ _ I _ wouldn’t do this ridiculous thing.”

“Patrick,” says Pete. “You literally did exactly this thing. You literally stayed with Hades to play in a band.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t a battle of the bands, I mean, I have some dignity, Pete.”

“Oh, my God,” says Pete, “I’m going downstairs to put your t-shirt on me.”

***

Patrick has retrieved a cardigan from his car and is frowning at the contents of Pete’s refrigerator. Pete is busily clacking away on his laptop. Patrick is convinced he’s fake-typing. Nobody needs to make that much noise while typing.

Pete is also wearing Patrick’s t-shirt from yesterday, which is the stupidest, most pointless thing and Patrick keeps getting ridiculously distracted by it, like,  _ why _ .

Patrick drags his hands through his hair and sighs tiredly. He kind of wants a nap, and their workday is just beginning. He says, “You need coffee in this house  _ so badly _ .”

“There’s a Starbucks, like, you know, you can get in a car and drive to it.” Pete waves his hand around, not looking up from his laptop.

“Oh, can I?” says Patrick, and sighs again. “I’ll get us coffee.”

Pete grunts.

Patrick feels very loved.

When he gets back from his Starbucks run, Lisette is there.

“Oh, hey,” she says to him. “I beat you here.”

Pete winks at him from behind his laptop.

Patrick says, “Yup, guess you did,” and hands Pete his Frappucino and says to Lisette, “Sorry, I should have asked if you wanted anything.”

“It’s fine, I grabbed coffee at the hotel this morning. I can’t have too much caffeine during the day or I have trouble sleeping at night.”

“Wow,” says Pete, “that’s such, like, cause-and-effect.” He looks at Patrick quizzically. “Other people are so weird about sleep.”

“Anyway,” Lisette says. “Patrick. Have you heard Pete’s fabulous idea?” Lisette is grinning from ear-to-ear.

Patrick does not feel that he has heard any fabulous idea out of Pete that would warrant such a reaction, if you don’t count his idea for what they should do in the hot tub later. “No?” he says, and looks at Pete in confusion. Pete is fucking  _ beaming _ , and Patrick says, “Wait, not his terrible battle of the bands idea?”

“ _ Terrible _ ?” says Lisette, shocked. “It is  _ awesome _ .”

“Our musical,” Patrick says, just to clarify, “is going to be a retelling of a Greek myth with a battle of the bands thrown in. And gay. A gay retelling.”

“Greek myths were pretty gay, Trick,” Pete says helpfully. “I’m not sure our retelling is  _ more _ gay.”

“Orpheus ends up with a woman in his myth,” Patrick counters, “so yes, I think ours is more gay.”

“He’s more like bi,” says Lisette.

“True,” Pete agrees gravely. “Orpheus is definitely more like bi.”

Patrick is so not impressed by Pete.

“Anyway,” says Lisette, “the whole thing is such a farce. I’m going to sell the producers on it.”

Patrick says, “Do Hades and Orpheus win the battle of the bands?”

“Of course,” Pete says. “Of  _ course _ they do. Orpheus is the guy with the voice so beautiful he got into the Underworld. Who beats that?”

“I don’t know,” says Patrick drily. “Who does Zeus have in his house band? Panic! at the Disco?”

He means it as a joke but he knows as soon as he says it that he completely miscalculated, because Pete gasps dramatically and says, “ _ Patrick _ . Oh, my God,  _ Patrick _ .”

“Oh, no,” says Patrick.

“You’re a genius. Isn’t he a genius? You’re a genius.  _ Yes _ . We should totally ask Brendon if wants to write the Zeus band songs. That will be so much fun.”

“Who’s writing for Poseidon?” asks Patrick. “Travie?”

Pete looks at him like he figured out a way to walk on the ceiling. “You are blowing my mind, Patrick,” he says, and then he unfolds himself from the couch and walks over to where Patrick is sitting and makes a big show of kissing Patrick’s cheek.

Lisette doesn’t even blink.

Pete sits next to him and says, “See, Lisette, this is why we are such good partners. He’s really bad at recognizing when an idea is a good one but he’ll still go along with it.”

“Wow,” says Patrick.

“It’s true, babe,” says Pete.

And still Lisette doesn’t blink.

Patrick frowns. He kind of wants to say,  _ Hey, Pete and I had sex last night finally, don’t we look different, we are literally wearing each other’s clothes _ . But that doesn’t seem like an appropriate thing to say to their librettist.

Pete says, “Fall Out Boy still wins, though. Orpheus totally wins the battle of the bands. Not that Hades cares because now Orpheus is going to leave and Hades doesn’t want Orpheus to leave, ever. But he doesn’t say that.”

“Because he’s an idiot,” says Patrick.

“When it comes to Orpheus, sure. Hades tries to send Orpheus on his way. ‘Thanks for winning and all, now off with Eurydice, back to the world where you belong. But the rule is—’”

“You can’t look back,” Patrick finishes, suddenly recalling the myth.

“Right,” says Pete. “You can’t look back. If Orpheus looks back, then he has to stay in the Underworld forever.”

“But Orpheus wants to stay in the Underworld forever,” says Patrick. “Of course he’s going to look back.”

“He says to Eurydice, ‘Sorry about this, but.’”

“And Eurydice says, ‘I already know.’”

“Right,” says Pete, and smiles. “Right, of course.”

“So Orpheus runs back.”

“Orpheus kisses Hades. And Hades is like, ‘Oh, no, now you have to stay forever.’”

“And Orpheus is like, ‘Wow, sounds awful.’”

“Only romantically,” says Pete, smiling. “That’s just the kind of asshole Orpheus is. And there you have it. Happy ever after, motherfuckers.”

***

Lisette excuses herself to use the bathroom before leaving. They had a productive day and she is thrilled to death about their musical and how much fun she feels it’s going to be to sit down and really dig into it, etc., etc., and Pete’s ego flag is flying even higher than usual over all of the praise and Patrick is completely bewildered.

“You just don’t have good taste,” Pete tells him, and backs him up against the kitchen counter.

“Yeah, totally agreed, look who I’m fucking,” says Patrick.

Pete smiles at him and bites at his lower lip and says, “You’re such an asshole and it’s so my type,” and then he sinks into a kiss and Patrick has a moment of wondering if he should point out Lisette is coming back but Pete’s a good kisser and Patrick decides he doesn’t care.

Then Lisette comes back and says, “So this is it.”

Pete stops kissing Patrick but he doesn’t back away from where he has him pinned against the counter. He just looks at Lisette and says, “This is it?”

And Patrick waits. Patrick waits for Lisette to say something about interrupting their kiss, about Pete’s refusal to back away from Patrick, and Lisette says nothing about any of that. She’s shrugging on her hoodie as she says, “I’m actually leaving tomorrow. Surprise! But yeah, I’ve got to get back to New York for Valentine’s Day or my wife will be all upset and pretend she’s not because it’s such a fake consumer holiday. I’m going to leave you to your songwriting and we’ll communicate via email and we don’t need to talk about porn plots anymore, right?”

“No,” says Pete solemnly. “We’ve totally moved beyond porn plots.” Then he pushes himself away from Patrick so he can give Lisette a hug. “You should have told us it was your last night, we could have taken you out and shown you how we’re big rock stars and the paparazzi totally follows us everywhere.”

“Wow, yeah, sounds like fun, darn, sorry I didn’t say anything,” says Lisette, and looks at Patrick. “It was nice to meet both of you. I’m really looking forward to the rest of this process, now that you’ve both turned out to be better than I thought.”

Patrick comes forward to give her a hug and says, “Our brand is basically ‘eh, better than I thought.’”

Lisette laughs. “Hey, if we get those kinds of reviews for our musical, it’s not the worst thing in the universe. My wife thought I lost my mind flying out here. I’m glad I get to start off Valentine’s Day saying ‘I told you so.’”

Pete says, “My favorite kind of Valentine’s Day,” and walks Lisette to the door.

Patrick stands in the middle of the kitchen, narrow-eyed, thinking.

“So,” says Pete as he comes back, “let’s take all our clothes off and—”

“She didn’t say anything,” says Patrick.

Pete cocks his head. “About…what?”

“About us. She walked in on us literally making out, and she didn’t say anything.”

“It wasn’t really ‘making out,’ Patrick—”

“Not the point,” says Patrick.

“I mean, what do you want her to say? Ask us for sex tips?”

“No, like, I don’t know. ‘Congratulations on finding each other and being happy?’” It sounds stupid when Patrick says it out loud, and he’s relieved that Pete doesn’t call him on how ridiculous an idea that is.

What Pete says is, “She didn’t say that because we found each other and got happy years ago. It would be weird for her to say it  _ now _ .”

“Right, but, we weren’t… I mean…” Patrick waves his hand between the two of them.

Pete says, “Are we doing a blushing virgin roleplay now? What is this?”

Patrick is frustrated that Pete’s not getting what he’s trying to communicate. Words are so fucking stupid sometimes, in their inability to catch the complicated way Patrick is feeling. He’s feeling… He’s feeling  _ happy _ , much happier than he was the day before at this time, much happier than he can remember ever being, and he doesn’t know how that’s not written all over him, how Lisette, looking at him, didn’t immediately say,  _ Wow, Patrick, things must be going well for you, I’m glad _ .

Pete says, “Okay, Trickster,” and kisses the side of his neck. “I’m going to rock your world. Are you ready?”

“Your dick’s not that great,” Patrick says automatically.

“Yeah, it is. But I can rock your world in more than one way, Patrick Stump. Brace yourself, babe.”

“Fine,” Patrick huffs out, off-balance by this conversation.

“She thought we were already having sex, Trick.”

“She thought what?”

“She thought we were already having sex. Most people do. She didn’t say anything because she made up her mind long ago that we were sleeping together, like,  _ biblically _ sleeping together, so why would she say anything now? It’s all entirely what she would have expected. Even if she didn’t think that based on reading our Wikipedias or whatever, she would have thought that the first night when she interrupted our date and I took you upstairs for sex stuff.”

“But it  _ wasn’t _ a date and you  _ didn’t _ take me upstairs for sex stuff,” Patrick protests.

“Yeah, no one believes you when you say stuff like that, darlin’,” says Pete. “Also, she doesn’t really know you. Not really. She only met you a few days ago. It’s not like she can tell that you’re happier now than you were five days ago. Honestly, she might just think you were in a funk five days ago or something.”

“Oh,” says Patrick. Because that does make sense. “Can  _ you _ tell that I’m happier now than I was five days ago?”

Pete smiles at him. “Yes. I can tell.” He kisses the tip of Patrick’s nose. “Now. We don’t have to do this but I figure, cards on the table: If you want to do some kind of blushing virgin roleplay thing, I am totally into that.”

***

Patrick has no idea where their phones are. This is an enduring theme, apparently, of having sex with Pete: they lose track of their phones. It’s kind of nice, because ordinarily Pete’s phone is surgically attached to his hand. Patrick is impressed to have found that Pete actually prefers Patrick’s dick in his hand to his phone. That would have been handy information to know in the Sidekick days, Patrick thinks.

Patrick wants his phone, though, because he can’t stop thinking about what Lisette said.

Pete is sleeping, his head on Patrick’s chest, and Patrick is scrunching his fingers through Pete’s hair and not waking him up because he never wakes Pete up when he’s sleeping, Pete doesn’t sleep enough.

But apparently Pete is not sleeping, because he says suddenly, “I’ve got the best idea for the musical.”

“Oh, God, what now?” says Patrick. “And you’d better not say vampires.”

“I think Orpheus should be wearing an argyle sweater and shorts and black knee socks when Hades sees him for the first time.”

“Jesus Christ,” Patrick grumbles, “your obsession with that outfit is honestly alarming.”

Pete giggles, obviously delighted with himself.

“Pete,” Patrick says. “Is it Valentine’s Day?”

“I don’t know,” Pete says, snuggling into Patrick’s chest. “It’s a made-up consumer holiday, don’t worry about it. Our Valentine’s Day gift to each other will be not getting out of bed, how’s that?”

“I need to go home tomorrow for clothes,” Patrick says.

“Oh, my  _ God _ ,” says Pete, “order some clothes off of Amazon like a normal human.”

“Order some clothes off of Amazon to save me from having to leave my boyfriend’s love nest, that’s what normal humans do?”

“Normal humans lucky enough to have super hot boyfriends, yeah.”

“I have a house not very far away with a lot of clean clothes in it, I’ll just drive to it tomorrow and get some.”

Pete props his chin up so he can give Patrick a thoughtful look. “In your old age—”

“Not that old,” says Patrick.

“In your old age,” Pete reiterates, “you’ve developed a weird thing for clean clothes, you know it?”

“That’s a normal thing to develop, Pete,” says Patrick.

“Is it?” Pete looks and sounds very doubtful.

“I can’t believe we are having a middle of the night disagreement about whether clothes should be cleaned,” says Patrick.

Pete smiles happily. “I can. We have the best conversations.”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Go to sleep.”

“Sing me a song,” Pete counters.

Patrick sings  _ No Tears Left to Cry _ , just to make Pete smile.

***

When Patrick wakes up in the morning he’s alone in bed, and he eventually locates Pete sprawled out in the living room, scribbling furiously.

“Lyrics?” Patrick guesses.

Pete grunts.

Patrick thinks of how yesterday Pete wanted every morning to start with lazy morning shower sex, and today Pete is barely looking up from his notebook. That’s Pete Wentz for you, Patrick thinks, and he wouldn’t live his life with any other person.

“I’m going to go home for a bit,” Patrick says.

“Uh-huh,” says Pete.

Patrick hesitates, and then realizes that he can  _ do _ this stuff now, so he kisses the back of Pete’s head before he leaves, the most accessible part of him in the position he’s in. He watches Pete brush his hand absently over his hair in the wake of it, and smiles stupidly, sappily, helplessly fondly.

Then he goes home.

And the thing is that he meant to just grab some things and go back to Pete’s but he checks his email to see if Pete’s sent him any of the lyrics he’s working on. When he’s writing by hand he’s more apt to just give the notebook pages to Patrick than to transcribe them but sometimes Pete can go back and forth in creative medium, and so you never know if Patrick has lyrics waiting in his inbox.

There are no lyrics, but Patrick presses play on the demos they have already for the musical, and Patrick considers them, and Patrick sits and opens GarageBand and starts fooling around.

And before he knows it Pete is saying, “Hey. Earth to Patrick,” and it’s dark in the room.

Patrick pinches at the bridge of his nose and says, “Oh, hi.”

Pete hits the light on and looks at him on the bed and says, “I was going to apologize for working, but I guess maybe we both had things we needed to creatively process.”

“Maybe,” admits Patrick, as Pete drops onto the bed with him.

“I brought food,” says Pete.

“Wow,” says Patrick, “that’s weirdly practical of you. Who are you and what have you done with Pete Wentz?”

Pete kisses behind his ear and puts a notebook on his lap. “Lyrics,” he says. “Which house do you like better, mine or yours?”

“Which do I like  _ better _ ?” says Patrick. “I don’t know. Mine, I guess. I did buy it after all.”

“Should we move in here then, or do you want to go pick out a house together?”

Patrick gives him an arch look. “Are we moving in together?”

“Yeah, because I’m not into this ‘leaving me to get clean clothes’ bullshit,” says Pete.

“So I guess you’re over the fear that I’m going to change my mind in the harsh light of day?” Patrick can’t help but ask.

“If you were going to change your mind, it would have been yesterday morning,” Pete says. “You didn’t. And that means you’re committed. That’s how you are. You’re not the only know-it-all in this relationship.”

“Let’s go house-hunting,” Patrick says. He suddenly wants an entirely fresh, clean start. They went house-hunting together for these houses, honestly, but they hadn’t done it with this full, fresh knowledge between them. Patrick wants to look at houses with Pete and seriously consider sharing it permanently together, their workspaces and how they’ll interact.

“Works for me,” says Pete, and kisses him quickly. “Let’s go eat.”

“Hang on,” says Patrick. “I have something for you.”

“Hmm?” says Pete.

Patrick presses play on the song he’s been working on all day.

It’s lush, and soaring, and full of violins, and more romantic than anything Patrick’s tried to write ever before in their lives. It’s a fucking  _ waltz _ , for fuck’s sake. Pete tips his head as he listens to it, and then he smiles. “What’s this?”

“Love theme for Orpheus and Hades,” says Patrick.

“It’s beautiful,” Pete says. “Too bad I haven’t given you any love song lyrics yet.”

“Yeah,” says Patrick. “About that…”

And then on the demo his voice kicks in, singing lyrics he’d scribbled out, and they’re half-assed and not half as good as what Pete’s eventually going to come up with, but Patrick had needed something for the song, and he’d been thinking of them ever since Pete had said it in the shower.  _ Love me _ , Patrick’s voice sings on the recording,  _ with extravagant lies. Tell me your heart skips a beat when we meet, tell me you can’t catch your breath when I smile. Love me with extravagant lies. Tell me you’ve never met anyone like me, tell me your world would be like death without me. Love me with every extravagant lie, and I’ll tell them all back to you. Promise. _

It’s the end of the recording. It’s not like Patrick had time for a whole song. Pete is silent, staring at the laptop.

“It has been a long time since I tried to write lyrics,” Patrick says. “I’m so out of practice. Sorry.”

“Fuck,” Pete says in a low voice. “Oh, fuck you, that’s the best Valentine’s Day present of all time, I am never going to top that, ever.” Pete pushes Patrick’s laptop off his lap so he can clamber onto it. “You fucking show-off,” he says, and kisses Patrick breathless.

***

Lisette sends them an entire official-looking  _ treatment _ of their musical, with spaces for their songs, and Patrick spends a day freaking out a little bit over how much music he has to write, even though Pete is calmly learning eight different languages on Duolingo simultaneously and seems not at all stressed out about all the lyrics they’re going to need.

Patrick forwards the treatment to Joe and Andy and says that he and Pete are working on rough songs that they can forward when they’re done, and Joe writes back and says,  _ You two have been in hiding, come by for the game tomorrow _ .

“What game?” Patrick says out loud.

Pete says without looking up from his phone, “Hey, why do you think I’m going to need to know how to say ‘The horse is drinking wine’ in Dutch?”

“Joe wants us to go to his house for the game tomorrow. What game?”

“It’s the United States of America, there’s some kind of sporting event happening, trust me.”

“We should go and get out of the house,” Patrick says.

Pete shrugs and then says, “Hey, Patrick, now the mouse is reading the newspaper.”

“I think you need to walk away from Duolingo,” says Patrick.

***

“It’s a gay retelling of the Orpheus and Hades myth, with a battle of the bands,” Patrick says about their musical, because apparently Joe could not be bothered to read the treatment.

“Cool,” says Joe, like that’s exactly what he expected.

Andy says, “I read the treatment, and I have some comments,” and then hands over a hard copy of the treatment that is covered in red pen.

“Wow,” Patrick says. “That is…a lot of comments.”

“Who’s this woman who helped you on this?” Andy asks. “What’s her name? Liza?”

“Lisette,” Patrick says.

“Lisette who librettes,” says Pete, who’s sprawled on the floor watching the soccer game on Joe’s television avidly.

“That’s not a word,” says Andy.

“That’s what I said,” says Patrick.

“Anyway, she’s good?” Andy asks.

“She must be,” says Joe. “You think these two came up with gay Orpheus and Hades battle of the bands all by themselves?”

“Yes,” Andy says seriously. “I do. That sounds  _ exactly _ like something these two would come up with all by themselves.”

“Lisette’s good,” says Patrick. “She helped us a lot. She actually thinks the whole idea could be a hit.”

“She’s cool,” says Pete from the floor. “She’s an honorary member of Fall Out Boy now.”

“Shouldn’t we have been asked about honorary members?” asks Joe.

“What’s an honorary member do?” asks Andy.

“Nothing,” says Patrick.

“Oh, then, who cares?” says Joe, and wanders into the kitchen for more pizza.

Patrick says, “We’ve got all these songs to write.”

“Patrick’s freaking out a little,” Pete says. The soccer game goes into commercial, so he rolls onto his back to look at Patrick. “I don’t know why. I keep telling him it’s just an album.”

“It’s not just an album,” says Patrick. “It’s a  _ story _ . We’ve got to tell a story.”

“ _ I  _ have to tell the story. Chill,” says Pete.

“I can’t just write bad pop songs like I usually do,” says Patrick fretfully.

“You never write bad songs, Trick,” says Pete.

“I have to write, like,  _ serious _ things. There’s all this  _ stuff _ .”

“See?” says Pete. “He’s freaking himself out.”

“You need to take up meditation,” Andy says wisely.

“Or weed,” Joe suggests, coming back into the room.

“He needs to have more sex,” Pete says, and shifts so he’s sitting on the floor between Patrick’s legs, brushing a kiss over the inside of Patrick’s thigh.

And  _ no one says anything _ . Joe and Andy argue over the quality of the vegan cheese on the pizza and the soccer game comes back on and Pete rests his head on Patrick’s knee to watch it, and none of their friends are like,  _ Hey, so, is this a thing you two do now? _

Patrick says suddenly, “Pete and I are sleeping together.”

“Yeah,” Joe says, “you always do. You’ve been doing it since the first tour.”

“Since before that, actually, I think,” says Andy. “Did you think we’d missed that?”

“No, now we have sex when we’re sleeping together. Before and after the sleeping, I mean. Not during the sleeping.”

Pete turns his head on Patrick’s knee and gives him a look like he is babbling nonsensically. Patrick kicks him a little.

“Okay,” Joe says to Pete, “he’s having some kind of mental break. Are you sure this musical is a good idea for him?”

“Yeah, no, he’s okay,” Pete says, and settles his head back on Patrick’s knee. “He wants people to know we haven’t been having sex all along.”

“That would be a weird thing to start telling people now, Patrick,” Joe tells him. “I mean, seriously.”

Andy rolls his eyes at the pair of them.

Pete kisses Patrick’s leg again.

***

“They didn’t even blink,” fumes Patrick. “No one ever blinks.”

“Uh-huh,” says Pete, not even looking over at him. It’s true that he’s driving them but still: that’s no excuse.

“What is  _ up _ with that?” complains Patrick.

“It’s almost like they assumed we were having sex all along,” Pete remarks thoughtfully.

Patrick sighs. “I give up.”

“Babe,” Pete says, and flickers a smile at him. “What does it matter? We’re the only two people the sex is relevant to. We did it our way. Who cares?”

“Did we do it a stupid way?” asks Patrick, because he’s been wondering this.

“If we did, it’s my fault,” says Pete.

“I think we can take equal responsibility for our inability to find each other’s dicks,” Patrick decides.

Pete pulls into his driveway and puts the car in park and looks at him. “We did it our way. We’re the only people it had to be right for. And maybe we could have done it another way and it still would have ended up exactly like this. But I don’t know. I like what we got, and I’m not going to risk it by pretending I’d want to do something differently. If a time traveler showed up right now and asked me what I wanted to change, I wouldn’t change a single fucking thing. Not a single second of it. Okay?”

And Patrick can’t disagree with that, so Patrick nods.

“Do you maybe want to come inside?” asks Pete coquettishly. “I’ve always wanted to make it with a big rock star.”

“Me, too,” says Patrick. “Do you know any?”

“I love you,” says Pete, and gets out of the car. And then starts fiddling with something in the yard.

Patrick has never seen Pete willingly doing yardwork, so he can’t imagine what’s going on. He stands on the doorstep and looks back at him and says, “Hey. What’s up? It’s grass.”

“Hang on,” Pete says. “I’m just.” He flaps his hand around in the air. “Go inside, I’ll catch up.”

Patrick sighs heavily and shakes his head and lets himself into Pete’s house.

Which is covered –  _ absolutely fucking covered _ – in rose petals.

Pete suddenly barrels into him, shouting, “Surprise!”

“What the fuck is this?” asks Patrick, bewildered, his feet crushing dozens and dozens of rose petals.

“Happy Valentine’s Day!” says Pete.

“It’s…not Valentine’s Day,” says Patrick, and frowns. “Is it? Wasn’t that…before?”

“Yeah, but you got me a gift for Valentine’s Day, and I got you  _ nothing _ . So. I owed you. See? What do you think?”

Patrick thinks it’s absurd. Patrick thinks he’s never displayed any real desire to have a house full of rose petals. And Patrick thinks that only Pete would think to do this. Pete would want to have the most romantic gesture of all time for a Valentine’s Day gift. But also Pete would have his house covered in rose petals every day of the week, if he thought Patrick wanted it even a little.

Patrick looks at Pete, who, in the face of his silence, has gone from gleeful exuberance to hesitant uncertainty.

Patrick opens his mouth and can’t think what to say. Can’t think of a single thing to say. So he sings. He sings, “Me and Pete,” because it’s the only thing that comes to his head. “In the wake of Saturday.”

And Pete seems to know what he means, because Pete smiles in relief.

Patrick walks Pete back against the front door, and the air is full of the scent of the rose petals they’re crushing, and he presses their foreheads together and closes his eyes and breathes for a second.

Pete says softly, “I didn’t know what to get you. I had no fucking clue. I know it’s ridiculous, but it seemed…extravagant.”

“I love it,” Patrick says. “Thank you. I love it.”

“Hey, Patrick,” Pete whispers.

“Hmm?” says Patrick.

“I bet I can get you to agree to name the musical Stumped,” says Pete.

And the thing is: Patrick’s pretty sure he can. 

  
  



End file.
